Feds to suspend border passport rule »
Posted by: TechnologyExpert 1 year, 3 months agoThe Bush administration is poised to suspend a major post-9/11 security initiative to cope with increasingly angry complaints from Americans whose summer vacations are threatened by new passport rules.
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Teech1 year, 2 months ago
Damn...sure hope this relaxation of security regulations doesn't allow any more Saudis to enter the country, cause a major terrorist disaster, and force G. W. Bush into implementing his latest executive order allowing him to suspend elections and remain in office until the crisis is over and "peace and order" is restored. One misplaced small nuclear warhead could sure ruin our day! How many are missing from the old Soviet Bloc countries? Hmmmmmm...all but one of the 9/11 highjackers held what nation's passport? Who would possibly have the kind of money to put together such a plan? What oil producing nation would stand to make even more money as a result of the energy crunch and economic chaos that would follow? Arrrgghhhh.....I gotta stop reading those Tom Clancy type novels........
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lovelytxwoman1 year, 3 months ago
To bad people want the government to suspend something because they whined like a bratty child! I myself managed to get my passport 2yrs ago before going on a cruise to the Caribbean. And guess what it only takes a little bit time and money to keep America safe! We are just as responsible as the government doing what it takes,like getting a passport! Silly spoiled brats that's what I see everyday!
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artists-and-writers1 year, 2 months ago
Vandee,
They already have been---and in DROVES. In fact, the State Department has been so inundated with both new passport applications and renewals that even with the expedited fees and surcharges, they haven't been able to adequately handle the load.
The bad news is, we are overcomplying.
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DoerNotASayer1 year, 2 months ago
ronin said "I like to call it the culture of instant-self-gratification"
Taking more than 6 months is instant gratification? Just how long are people expected to make travel plans in advance, especially just a trip across the border into Canada or Mexico?
It is just another classic example of inept and incompetent Republicans passing laws they have no idea how to implement or enforce, and/or putting incompetent, bungling political cronnies in positions that require professional qualifications.
The only thing you can count on when it comes to the Bushies and the (former) Republican congress is that you can count on them to totally screw up anything they touched.
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el-jefe1 year, 3 months ago
If it only took "just a little bit of time and money", there wouldn't be MILLIONS of dollars of cancelled travel on the line.
Let me get this straight...soon, we're supposed to have a national fraud-proof driver's license, right? For decades, a non-national, non-fraud-proof driver's license was all that was required to travel between the US, Canada, and Mexico, right? So why do we suddenly need to have a new ultra-secure driver's license AND a passport to travel between these countries? You realize this only affects US citizens, right? Canadians and Mexicans do not have US driver's licenses (or at least they won't once the new national IDs kick in).
Please don't whine to me about how "the world changed on 9/11". It did not. The threat was there the day before, and if anything, there is less of a threat today. They had bombings in Madrid and London, and Spain and the UK do not have the equivalent of this passport madness.
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texangelwings1 year, 3 months ago
El Jefe, excellent comments.
The sudden need for "a new ultra-secure driver's license", does not apply to the thousands of people who are crossing our borders in between border check points. We are losing our freedoms daily.
Once the new licenses are released, the street corners and flea markets here in Texas will have people selling the new licenses/reproduced. (it is almost like they get advanced copies.)
The track record of performance has been exposed by one man who had TB and managed to travel unimpeded.
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jaern1 year, 2 months ago
Remember how after 9-11 they spent billions in increased security measures with high tech gadgetry instead of having employees use the tools they already had: their eyes? 9-11 could have been halted at the airports if security guards had been doing their job instead of slacking off.
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jordan111 year, 3 months ago
To bad people want the government to suspend something because they whined like a bratty child!>>>>
Oh, and by the way; It isn't about suspending the program, it's about doing it in a GD timely manner! With the BILLIONS given to 'homeland stupidity', there's no excuse for it taking MONTHS & MONTHS to process a passport!
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aceofspades11 year, 3 months ago
if you think a passport is going to keep you safe - ask an illegal for theirs -- HAHAHA
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joeblowe1 year, 3 months ago
This is totally asinine. FORCING U.S. citizens to have a passport to travel? And yet, 12 million invaders are here without even a bus ticket. And this damned federal ID is totally fascist. To the best of my knowledge, the federal government does NOT have the authority to issue a drivers license or any other form of ID -except- a passport. I'm with Aaron Russo on this one: REFUSE the federal ID ("May I see your papers, please?") Instruct your representatives to KILL this reprehensible form of enslavement. Trust me, it will NOT make you safer, and it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with national security. It's only for citizens, so it can only be to control the citizens. Criminals, invaders, and terrorists are NOT required to get one.
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Eagle_Eye1 year, 3 months ago
We already have a federal ID program, it is called the "Social Security" number.
I just traveled to Jamaica where I had to use my Passport for the first time going there in 9 years and I am all for it!!!!
If we had passports mandatory to enter and leave this country then I would feel safer about the areas we can control with Border Patrol.
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joeblowe1 year, 3 months ago
Are you nuts? How do you plan to force criminals and terrorists to apply for a passport? The ONLY people who will have a passport and/or valid ID are law abiding citizens. You need to rethink this. Besides, the Constitution doe NOT give the government the authority to issue identification papers. Period. Technically, not even passports.
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jordan111 year, 3 months ago
This is totally asinine. FORCING U.S. citizens to have a passport to travel? And yet, 12 million invaders are here without even a bus ticket>>>>
I know, the irony is so thick it's hilarious!
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CrazyRay1 year, 2 months ago
You need a passport to go anywhere else, requiring one for Canada and Mexico has been a long time coming
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goda21 year, 3 months ago
WHAT THE F*** Secret CIA Prison or non Secret CIA Prison!!! When you have enemies its your right to defend yourself...
What difference does it make? Countries have secret agencies else the NY Airport massacre would have happened...see the story where the plot was foiled due to intelligence. WE have to realize we are at WAR right now and in war everything is JUSTIFIED...coz its done to protect yourself!!!!
see the atrocities in action
http://www.factusa.org/bdesh/teaser
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jordan111 year, 2 months ago
WHAT THE F*** Secret CIA Prison or non Secret CIA Prison!!! When you have enemies its your right to defend yourself...>>>>>>
One small problem. The CIA/FBI is keeping 'tabs' on law abiding U.S. citizens. Protesters, including high school kids who attended a rally, are in the computers! All it takes is ONE nincompoop, (& trust me, there's more than one) thinking one of these people are a threat, and they can scoop them up to go to those 'secret prisons.' AND, our country has LAWS, & TREATIES that better men than george bush could dream to be, have honored. Those laws come straight out of the Constitution, which you'd better start keeping a closer eye on, or you're going to lose as well as the victims of this administration.
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zembel1 year, 3 months ago
How much longer will it take Western citizens to wake up to the fact that all those scary terror organisations such as Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are actually creations of their own governments, or to be more precise, Mossad, CIA, MI5 and alike. Their sole purpose is to scare ordinary citizens into blind support of their criminal governments, enabling them to dismantle civil rights and social services in the name of combatting terror and create excuses for brutal oppression of whoever is in the way of profit maximisation for their neo-fascist corporations. Sure, there might be many naive, true believers amongst ordinary members of those phony terror organizations, but the people in power, the likes of Saudi billionaire Osama Bin Laden, are actually part of the Orwellian elite.
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joeblowe1 year, 2 months ago
Well, I might not mind it so much, but my preference is, when visiting an island, to go to the US Virgin Islands. Plus, my wife neither speaks nor understands British.
I don't think it's wrong to ask people coming INTO a country to properly identify themselves. If we were to enforce that, we wouldn't have 12 million sneak-ins.
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joeblowe1 year, 2 months ago
Here is the proper way for this to work:
1) When leaving the U.S. - if you are HERE, you belong here.
2) When crossing the border on the way OUT, you are given a document - perhaps with a photo or fingerprint - that says you are entitled to come back IN.
3) When you come back in, your exit document is checked for authentication, THEN DESTROYED - with no further record being made.
This protects the ongoing privacy of individual citizens and also provides some level of security. Citizens having lost their exit document would be required to demonstrate that they are a citizen, then admitted. This would take longer and be a pain so people would tend to be careful with their exit document.
See, quick, easy, cheap.
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eviln3d1 year, 2 months ago
I'm curious... I just got my passport a month ago... And never, not once did I ever get a receipt from the state department. I filled out the forms sent them in and got the passport back, but no receipt... not even anything in the mail when the passport came back just the stuff I sent plus the new passport....
So... how exactly is anyone supposed to show a state department receipt when as far as I know they don't exist? Or was this just another instance of an incompetent government agency that forgot to give me a receipt.
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albionperfides1 year, 2 months ago
Joeblowe
What you are describing is a form of passport. Your problem is in looking at it from a US stand point. Imagine your Homeland Security looking at an exit document from, say, Uzbekistan. What then? Visas of course needed. Just get your passport and use it to visit non US "Dependencies". Find a country whose language your wife speaks and you may be pleasently surprised
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ckcats1 year, 2 months ago
I simply don't understand why you all are so upset about needing a passport to travel outside the U.S. Canada and Mexico are the only countries U.S. citizens can travel to without one. They are simply now being added to the list. Quite frankly, we've known for about 1 1/2 years this was going to happen so no excuse to be surprised and upset now. And as for the travelers who are being exempt...it's crap. They knew just like everyone else. And a passport isn't about safe, it's about WHO'S traveling in and out of the country so if there is a terrorist problem....they'll know. Grow up...all of you who are whining. Oh, and by the way joeblowe....the U.S. is part of the rest of the world. We aren't on our own planet, we do participate in world affairs.
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aceofspades11 year, 2 months ago
here is how secure a passport is - you need an authentic birth certificate with a raised stamp when applying for a passport- In NYC you can get this from the dept of vital statistics which is aprt of the dept of health. You simply go to the office in person with some form of ID like a driver's license (it shows your date of birth) - give them an adress & in about 5 minutes you get a raised stamp birth certificate which is taken as ID when the driver's license you used to get it is not. Furthermore you can do this by mail but that takes 7-8 weeks but needs virtually no special ID. -- Passport secure? what a joke.
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amazed1 year, 2 months ago
not only all that, you only need the passport to go to the islands, Mexico, Canada and Central America if you FLY. If you drive or go by sea, (private or cruise line) your birth certificate is still adequate. Which makes the whole deal even stupider.
My daughter applied for a passpart in the beginning of March and got it at the end of May -- with the wrong birthyear. We overnighted it back (she's leaving the end of June) and were biting our nails. We got the corrected one back by overnight mail two days later. We were amazed.
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ckcats1 year, 2 months ago
Get it straight people....here are the rules
U.S. Citizen Passport Requirements
Air Travel
ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport to enter (or re-enter) the United States.
Cruise/Car Travel
As early as January 1, 2008, subject to U.S. Government amendment, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport or other documents as determined by the Department of Homeland Security. And, as early as January 1, 2008, subject to U.S. Government amendment U.S. and Canadian citizens 15 or younger with their parents consent may cross the U.S. / Canadian border by land or sea with a certified copy of their birth certificate.
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innocent-bystander1 year, 2 months ago
Money, clothes, sex, car, gas, vacation, American idol, education, national security, human rights and world peace. Now do we have our priorities straight?
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