Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks heightened U.S. security concerns, congressional investigators said on Tuesday they were able to use phony identities to obtain valid driver's licenses in several states.
Undercover investigators for the General Accounting Office (news - web sites) were 100 percent successful at obtaining the licenses in eight states using alias identities, according to a report by the congressional watchdog agency released on Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee.
In a few cases where state department of motor vehicles employees noticed that documents were counterfeit, they failed to notify security agents. In some instances, employees gave advice on what paperwork was needed to obtain the license, Robert Cramer, director of GAO office of special investigations, said in testimony to the committee.
"The weaknesses we found during these investigations clearly show that border inspectors, motor vehicle departments and firearms dealers need to have the means to verify identity and to determine whether out-of-state driver's licenses presented to them are authentic," Cramer told the committee.
In earlier GAO investigations undercover investigators were able to use phony driver's licenses to buy firearms and use false law enforcement documents to gain entry to a federal building with firearms.
The investigation was conducted at the request of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Sen. Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record) of Montana, the top Democrat on the panel.
'FACE THE FACT'
"We have to face the fact that driver's licenses and the Social Security (news - web sites) number have become the de facto national identifiers," Grassley said as he opened a committee hearing on the GAO's findings. "Without these, you can't really function in our society. With them, you can open a bank account, buy a gun, get a credit card, take flight lessons or board an airplane."
Several of the 19 hijackers who crashed airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon (news - web sites) on Sept 11, 2001, illegitimately obtained driver's licenses.
The committee heard from Youseff Hmimssa, a Moroccan who pleaded guilty to fraud charges and testified in a case against four men in Detroit who were charged with being part of a "sleeper cell" of terrorists. Three were convicted and a fourth was acquitted.
Hmimssa, his face blocked from public view, described how he got phony identity papers to enter the United States and how he made false documents for the Detroit group, including passports and visas that would allow a person to obtain a social security number and apply for a driver's license.
He told the committee it was easy to obtain false identity documents "all over the world."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, the lead prosecutor in the Detroit case, said Hmimssa was able to use simple equipment purchased at local stores to make "very accurate and very good false documentation."
Homeland Security Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson told the committee that law enforcement agents were working with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators to develop minimum uniform standards for U.S. driver's licenses. Hutchinson said that four states still do not require a photograph for their licenses.
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