To Die For
I once was lost but now am found,Was blind, but now I see
--Amazing Grace, John Newton
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It is being marketed as the card à la mode--the new pocket-sized "alternative passport." Neat and tidy, and cheaper than a real passport. Tres chic. However, it will not entitle you to travel worldwide, so if your travel plans include more than Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean, this card will be a redundancy.
If you do not possess a passport, in a few days you will have to present both a government-issued ID --like a driver's license -- plus proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate, to return to the U.S. after crossing the border. It is unclear whether the new Real ID Chertoff is touting will suffice for both of these requirements.
USA Today reports, "The State Department says it will begin accepting applications Feb. 1 for passport cards as alternatives to passports for Americans who travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean." Not only are they portable, at $45 they are cheaper than a regular passport. If all you do is hop across our borders or go to the Caribbean, this is your card.
From the State Department website:
"To facilitate the frequent travel of U.S. citizens living in border communities and to meet DHS’s operational needs at land borders, the passport card will contain a vicinity-read radio frequency identification (RFID) chip. This chip will link the card to a stored record in secure government databases. There will be no personal information written to the RFID chip itself [green emphasis State Dept.] "
Not now, at least, in the first days of its trial. Pray tell, what will be on the RFID chip?
Sounds pretty benign at first, but the implications are nefarious. This creates a de facto categorization of citizens based on their travel preferences. You will give this information away by virtue of the cost you pay for your identification and therefore the card you carry. Yet another way to slot you in the bureaucratic hierarchy.
Will the chip be like that in your pet cat, revealing name and address (and owner?), in case you get lost?
Will you have more success getting back home than your lost luggage? Or will you end up like them, languishing in an unclaimed baggage depot in Scottsboro, Alabama, unceremoniously waiting to be bought by the highest bidder.
Labels: alternative passport, Real ID, RFID chip
posted by Lisa at 10:54 PM
6 Comments:
This is too fucking funny. If I ever return to the US it will be by extradition for back taxes.
Most current regulations plus the no fly list will keep me out of the US.
Its not nice to bitch about Bush. But it is fun. Hahaha.
The only info on the card will be all the needed info for ID thief. I feel safer already.
jo6pac
"in a few days you will have to present both a government-issued ID --like a driver's license -- plus proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate, to return to the U.S. after crossing the border. "
This is already the case at the Mexican border and has been for quite some time. I find it intensely annoying that we must all pay for passports in the coming weeks to prepare for care-visits to my step-mom. But am I going for this little piece of crap instead? No.
labrys,
Yes. And I also find it hard to believe that our military ID's-- either AD, reserves or ret'd -- can't have some identifier as to our citizenship. Why do we need layers of identification?
jo,
We veterans need not worry about having our data compromised. The VA already does that neatly by losing laptops with our personal information, etc.
Pity the rest of Americans must also now be exposed to this flim-flammery.
When I went to Canada three years ago, I needed my birth certificate + driver's license to get back in. The difference now is that they're saying that won't be good enough, now you need a passport or this new "passport card". Apparently the RealID thingy isn't going to do the trick either because the feds don't trust the states to do a good enough job of validating citizenship...
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