A New York-based group that fears terrorists could disguise their identities using North Carolina driver's licenses plans to place a billboard in Raleigh with the slogan: "Don't License Terrorists, North Carolina."

A copy of the image that will appear on the billboard, paid for by the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License, shows supposed terrorists standing near a winding mountain road.

One of the terrorists, wearing a traditional Arab headdress, is holding a grenade and a North Carolina driver's license. The others are wearing ski masks and have rocket-propelled grenade launchers strapped on their backs.

Amanda Bowman, president of the coalition, said the advertisement will go up within a week. She said it wasn't clear where it will appear.

"It will be in a key spot ... so that your legislators and government officials can't ignore it," Bowman said.

Bowman said her group is targeting North Carolina because its members think the state's driver's license requirements are lax. She said it would be easy for a terrorist to establish a false identity in the United States using a North Carolina license.

Ernie Seneca, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said the group is mistaken.

"They're flat wrong, and they're totally inaccurate," Seneca said. "North Carolina has a strong driver's license program, and we have taken significant steps to address security and the identification of license holders."

Specifically, the coalition wants North Carolina to require that applicants for a license to show a valid Social Security card and proof that they are residing in the country legally.

Although illegal immigrants qualify for licenses in North Carolina, they have to show at least two valid forms of identification to prove they are who they say they are, Seneca said.

North Carolina requires state residents to use either a Social Security number or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number to apply for a license. The ITIN is issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

However, the state Department of Transportation hopes to encourage state lawmakers to pass a law forbidding the use of the ITIN when applying for a license, Seneca said.

The wider campaign

Bowman, who lives in Sloatsburg, N.Y., said that the coalition formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has several hundred members. She said many of the members have family members or loved ones who were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The group plans to spend $50,000 on the billboard advertisement in Raleigh and on a media campaign in North Carolina aimed at drumming up support. After North Carolina, the group plans to take its campaign to New Mexico, Montana, Wisconsin and several other states that its members think have lax license requirements.

Immigrant advocacy groups fear that the billboard will fuel negative stereotypes about immigrants.

Melanie Chernoff, deputy director of El Pueblo, an Hispanic advocacy group in Raleigh, said the billboard is unnecessary because license requirements in North Carolina already are strict.

"This kind of billboard campaign will stir up a lot of negative feelings for absolutely no reason," Chernoff said. "It portrays the idea that perhaps all immigrants are terrorists, and we certainly don't think that is true."

Concern that states were issuing driver's licenses to people who were using fraudulent IDs to obtain them soared after the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of the men involved in those attacks had driver's licenses issued in the United States.

Earlier this year, federal lawmakers approved a bill known as REAL ID that asks states to tighten license requirements. North Carolina will comply with that federal law and has until 2008 to do so, Seneca said.

The Department of Transportation began tightening its license requirements last year under a program dubbed Stop Fraud. The department narrowed from 17 to 11 the list of identification cards that people can use as verification for a license. To get a license, applicants must show two IDs from that list along with either a Social Security number or tax identification number.

In another change that began this month, licenses issued to immigrants with visas will expire on the same day their visas expire, Seneca said.