Urgent -- HR 10 almost reaching the House floor for passage
author: Quiddity
Among many many other infamous provisions, this "son of USA PATRIOT Act" deprives some of the basic human rights, privacy, due process and civil liberties from immigrants (documented, case pending or undocumented), ethnic minorities and trans persons.
Alert on H.R. 10, "9/11 Committee Recommendations Implementation Act"
(As of Oct. 5, this was referred to the Union Calendar 453 to be considered by the Committee of the Whole.)

Title II, Subtitle F, Section 2142 (a/k/a: CHAMPION Act)
This provision creates within the Department of Justice a biometric identifier-based pre-employment criminal background check system, called Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (IAFIS).
Implications: Government and private sector employers will begin collecting fingerprints and/or other biometric identifiers from prospective and current employees for the purpose of screening. It may be possibly be kept by employers, and possibly a record of such inquiries with the database may be kept indefinitely with the USDOJ. May create a situation in which submission of fingerprint becomes a requirement for employment.

Title II, Subtitle G, Section 2173 (Next Generation Airline Passenger Prescreening)
This provision mandates a launch of a "next generation airline passenger prescreening" system on Nov. 1, 2004. This prescreening system is likely to be what is known as CAPPS II.

Title III, Subtitle A, Section 3001 (Eliminating the "Western Hemisphere Exceptions")
This provision will require U.S. citizens to have a passport or a DHS-designated document to leave the U.S. for Canada or Mexico; a passport to be required for all other destinations, including the Caribbean islands. DHS is to "designate documents that are sufficient to denote identity and citizenship in the United States such that they may be used, either individually or in conjunction with another document, to establish that the bearer is a citizen or national of the United States for purposes of lawfully departing from or entering the United States." This may take a form of a DHS-issued "travel pass" such as NEXUS card, or other documents issued by other agencies or even states.
Implications: Make travel to Canada or Mexico more difficult for U.S. citizens, as they will have to apply for a passport or a DHS-designated travel document with the federal government, most likely for a high fee. If the federal government sufficiently convinces state and territorial governments to issue drivers licenses to this standard, they will be forbidden from issuing such documents to undocumented immigrants (or, be required to clearly mark the document as "not valid for border crossing," creating a ground for discrimination in the context of more day-to-day usages of such identification documents).
Section 3002 makes Canadians entry to the U.S. more difficult. Potentially creates a massive problem and enormous workload at the northern border and at U.S. consular posts in Canada.
Section 3004 will increase the number of ICE officers by more than 800 effective 2006.

Section 3005 (Alien identification standards)
"For purposes of establishing identity to any Federal employee, an alien present in the United States may present any document issued by the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security under the authority of one of the immigration laws (as defined in section 101(a)(17)), or an unexpired lawfully issued foreign passport... no other document may be presented for those purposes.'.
This provision requires non-U.S. citizens to present either an immigration document or a passport for "federal purposes." In other words it will invalidate the use of state-issued ID or driver's licenses by foreigners (while it will still be legal for U.S. citizens), and effectively prohibit the use of documents such as a matricula consular.
This short-sighted provision resembles the national ID proposal (now dead) in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996. First, this will be a fertile ground for racial profiling. A while Canadian citizen probably will not have a problem using a U.S. state driver's license to enter the airline passenger checkpoint (for a domestic flight) or a federal building; a U.S. citizen of a Latino, Middle-Eastern or Asian heritage, on the other hand, will be interrogated and harassed by a TSA or ICE officer. Eventually this may encourage state legislatures to pass laws similar to those in California and New York, depriving foreign students, undocumented immigrants and others (who do not possess the "paper" regardless of their citizenship or immigration status) of a basic identification document necessary in conducting many of the basic social functions for their survival. This will open a door to a big human rights violation, as well as violating privacy, due process and civil liberties. The "federal employee" in this provision includes anyone who is part of the federal government, including the U.S. Postal Service, National Parks Service, Federal Courts, etc., not just "national security sensitive" places.

Title III, Subtitle 3 governs driver's licenses and state identification cards.

Section 3052. This again creates a back-door national identification card system.
3052 (b), minimum documentation requirements.
(3) the person's gender.
Implication for some: In states such as California, Oregon and Washington, persons with a medical condition known as "Gender Identity Disorder" (commonly referred to as transsexuals or transgender) or those with intersexed conditions may change the gender designator on their identification card with a relative ease, without the necessity of sex reassignment surgery. This arrangement is in place to ensure the physical safety and to prevent discrimination against those who may be otherwise different from the "sex" as appearing in their identity papers. Creation of a federal standard may prevent states from continuing this practice in favor of a more restrictive federal standards as used by the Social Security Administration.
3052 (d) (5) requires state DMVs to submit social security numbers of applicants to the Social Security Administration for verification. Again this may cause undue difficulties for the transgendered or intersexed persons, as SSA database matches number with name and sex (see above).
Section 3053 creates a singular federal database of all state IDs and driver's licenses, making them a de facto federal ID issued by states.