Missourinet

Your source for Missouri News and Sports

You are here: Home / Archives for Jackie Benboom

House committee questions effectiveness of scans in fighting fraud

By

A House Committee investigating the Revenue Department’s handling of Missourians information has looked back on a fraud case involving the St. Joseph license office. Nine people in Missouri were indicted in January 2012 for a conspiracy thought to have provided more than 3,500 fraudulent IDs to illegal immigrants, with the St. Joseph office its hub.

The Bipartisan Committee on Privacy Protection has asked the Revenue Department’s Special Agent in Charge, David Wickerham, if he thinks the Department’s new licensing process that includes the scanning and retention of personal documents, could help fight such fraud. He says it would not because in that case, actual documents were being used by the perpetrators.

“As it relates to St. Joe, scanning the documents would not have prevented anything.”

The Department’s head of motor vehicle licensing, Jackie Benboom, says the scanning practice could make catching and prosecuting people who submit fraudulent documents easier than the earlier system.

“For over-the-counter you could have an individual come in and submit their documentation and they walk out with their driver’s license in their hand … with central issue, it allows the Department to take a look and review those documents prior to, and instead of handing the document to the individual and then walk out the door and we have to chase it and may never get it back again, you’re able to actually stop the license from being mailed out to the individual.”

That committee has wrapped up two straight days of hearings in the Capital in Jefferson City.

House panel holds day one of testimony about Real ID compliance

By

The House Bipartisan Committee on Privacy Protection has asked whether the Department of Revenue has moved closer to complying with the federal Real ID Act, after a 2009 Missouri law barred compliance. The Committee was appointed to dig into whether the Department is mishandling personal information from Missouri license applicants.

Much of its hearing Tuesday focused on a letter from Department Director Alana Barragan-Scott to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano outlining 39 things that a state must do to comply with Real ID.

Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon tells the Department’s head of driver’s licensing, Jackie Benboom, that letter raises doubts about whether the Department has in fact done nothing to comply.

“Any average person that picked up this document and read it would have believed that the Department of Revenue was clearly, in fact, complying with Real ID.”

Under oath, Benboom says that document was part of her agency’s effort to tell the federal government Missourians shouldn’t have to endure extra security checks just because Missouri was not Real ID compliant.

“What the federal government has said is that Missouri citizens … would have to have a second check when you are flying on an airplane or if you would go into [a federal government office] or like, the nuclear plant, on federal land.”

Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan asked Benboom about a 2011 letter she sent to Hal Tyson, a Program Management Specialist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, applying for an extension of a Fiscal Year 2008 REAL ID Demonstration Grant.

In that letter she says, “Missouri currently has legislation enacted that generally prohibits participation in REAL ID; however, over the past decade, Missouri has worked hard to implement a program for issuing driver licenses and identification cards with security standards consistent with the standards of the REAL ID Act.”

Jordan says it appears that she was saying Missouri would comply with Real ID in order to receive the grant money but Benboom disagrees.

“It may appear, but that’s not what we were doing.’

Jordan tells her, “Perception is reality and you can say ‘It’s not so,’ as many times as you want to, but it appears that this is a duck and you’re trying to tell us it’s a goose.”

Benboom and committee members disagreed whether Missouri has become more compliant with Real ID, or whether the state simply has a system that is comparable.

The Committee will take more testimony on Thursday. While it is meeting, House Speaker Tim Jones (R-Eureka) will conduct a conference call to discuss legal actions being prepared to compel officials in Governor Jay Nixon’s administration to fully cooperate with an investigation into the Department of Revenue’s actions. The Committee voted to subpoena several members of the Nixon Administration to appear and testify. They are Doug Nelson, Kristy Manning, Peter Lyskowski, Jeff Harris and Chris Pieper as well as former Revenue Department director Alana Barragan-Scott.