ALBANY – The Spitzer administration yesterday said it will not voluntarily share with the feds information from a new state motor-vehicles photo database.
The state already has 1 million driver’s-license pictures in the database, which is part of a pilot project to ensure new anti-fraud technology designed to make licenses more secure work.
It will ultimately be expanded to include all license photos.
While state and local law enforcement will have easy access to the pictures, federal officials who want database information will need a court order, DMV Commissioner David Swarts and state Homeland Security Director Michael Balboni said.
U.S. Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said the process is “the current status quo” and said that “under the [new agreement] that wouldn’t change.” Gov. Spitzer, who is planning to allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses, has often said it’s not the state’s job to enforce federal immigration laws.
But when asked yesterday why the state wouldn’t voluntarily give information from the database to federal officials, Balboni discussed how U.S. customs officials won’t share information on individuals who enter the country.
“We want to have an exchange of information,” he said.
Assembly Republican Minority Leader James Tedisco, a chief critic of Spitzer’s plan, said the commission that looked into the 9/11 terrorist attacks cited a lack of intergovernmental communication as one of the reasons for the failure to prevent the attacks.
“[Spitzer] is looking to protect illegal aliens instead of the citizens of New York and this country and our way of life,” Tedisco said.