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Kentucky
Moves Toward a New Awareness of The importance of
secure identification credentials has been brought to the forefront
of national security by the tragic events of September 11th. As the
federal government forms a new Department of Homeland Security everyone
starts to wonder how this will affect them. In 2002, Kentucky legislators decided to move Kentucky toward a standardized method of gathering information on non-citizens and non-permanent residents. They passed House Bill 188, which now requires a question to be answered at the circuit clerk's office when you apply for a drivers license. The question is, "Are you a U.S. citizen or permanent resident?" If the answer is no, they must show INS (Immigration Naturalization Service) documentation. The Governor's Office for Technology has been working in partnership with the Transportation Cabinet to make the technology changes necessary to capture the INS number and INS status code as supplied in the documentation. Surprisingly, approximately 2,000 INS numbers have been collected in one and a half months time. For the most part these were renewals to existing drivers licenses that were renewing because this was their birth month. Governor Patton has appointed Brigadier General D. Allen Youngman as the Homeland Security contact for Kentucky. For more information regarding Kentucky's homeland security visit http://homeland.state.ky.us. As they get established,
the Federal Department of Homeland Security will most likely set standards
so information can be shared between databases of border management,
law enforcement, and intelligence community agencies. This will be a
colossal undertaking. President Bush said, "We will build a national
environment that enables the sharing of essential homeland security
information. We must build a 'system of systems' that can provide the
right information at all the right times. Information will be shared
'horizontally' across each level of government and 'vertically' among
federal, state and local governments…We will leverage America's
leading-edge technology…to effectively secure the homeland".
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