State Dept: Try passport cards for Canada, Mexico

[ThoughtCriminal]

Original Article

State Dept: Try passport cards for Canada, Mexico
Mon Jul 28, 3:12 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The State Department's new passport cards, which are wallet-sized identification cards designed to speed border crossings by U.S. citizens to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, are proving popular already.


More than 350,000 Americans have pre-ordered the passport cards, according to the State Department.

The card is not valid for any type of air travel. It can only be used for land and sea crossings between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Bermuda or the Caribbean.

Beginning in June 2009, travelers will be required to present documents proving both citizenship and identity when entering the U.S. through a land or sea border. For Americans who drive to Canada or Mexico or cruise regularly to the Caribbean, but who do not expect to fly abroad, the passport card is a cheaper, smaller, more portable alternative to a conventional passport book.

It is the size of a credit card or driver's license, and has a photo and identification information printed on it, like a driver's license. It also contains a chip with a random number that allows border officials to instantly retrieve your data.

"When you come to the border, hold your card up to your window, and on the border patrol screen, up will pop your name, your picture, the fact that you are a U.S. citizen, and the number of your card. They'll peek in to see if you're the same person, and speed you on your way," said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services Brenda Sprague in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

"If you live in a border community and you regularly go back and forth across the border, whether it's many times a week or many times a month or several times a year, the passport card makes sense," she added.

Passport cards are good for 10 years and cost $45 ($35 for children under 16). Applications can be made at any passport-processing site. If you already have a passport but want the card anyway because of the convenient size or quick scanning, it's only $20 and can be ordered by mail.

For details on how and where to get a passport card, visit http://www.travel.state.gov.

More than 7,600 cards have already been mailed out to customers who pre-ordered the cards. All existing orders are expected to be filled by Sept. 30. New applications will take about four weeks to process.




How long until we have to carry ze papers with us everywhere?

[dc dalton]

They have been trying to get a federal ID system in place for many many years now and this just may be it since so many states are refusing the new regulations for drivers licenses.

Any day now it will be "show us your papers" just about anywhere you go.

[sluggie24]

Originally Posted by dc dalton

Any day now it will be "show us your papers" just about anywhere you go.

Maybe that is what it will take for the average sheeple in this country to wake up. Getting harrassed for ID everwhere......

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by sluggie24

Maybe that is what it will take for the average sheeple in this country to wake up. Getting harrassed for ID everwhere......

They're sheeple...they'll never wake up. So it's up to the well informed to get it corrected, yet again.

[ChamberedRound]

I don't see why this is such a big deal. You need a passport now to cross any national border anyway, so on the surface what's the big deal if they want make available a passport card to make Canada and Mexico crossings easier? This really isn't a "papers please" issue IMHO, as it's not being required within the US. As long as the passport system in general remains voluntary, and it's still a sovereign US passport (as opposed to a North American Union passport) then I'm OK with it.

What I don't understand is why we need to spend more tax dollars to implement something which already exists. Just make everyone use a standard passport and be done with it. My concern is that the US government is trying to use a passport card for US/Mexico/Canada/Caribbean crossings as a transitional step towards a North American Union ID.

On a related note, regardless of passport book vs card vs RealID, I do have a problem with the storage of biometric data and personal information. I have an "old school" passport now, but it expires in a few years and I don't know if I'm going to renew it. My wife has one of the "new and improved" passports they started issuing in the last year or so, and I don't like the potential that thing has at all. But at least passports are voluntary; you don't want one, don't get one.

[pex]

I was reading about this the other month, and the passport card, like the chip in the e-passports (which are all that have been issues the last number of years) store apparently just what is in the passport now, although they always hint at biometric data.

You're not giving them the biometric data for the application of either the passport or the card, and I don't believe you give any extra info for the card you have not or would not otherwise provide for the card.

The question would then be, where do they get the biometric data if there is any? Maybe that's a worry, but you're certainly not providing that for the application now.

A note on fingerprint biometrics from another thread, right about the time I must have been doing my research:
http://www.pafoa.org/forum/lounge-10...rt-page-2.html

[VariableFeedback]

Originally Posted by ChamberedRound

What I don't understand is why we need to spend more tax dollars to implement something which already exists.

I think one of the problems is the huge backlog in standard passport processing.

[ChamberedRound]

Originally Posted by VariableFeedback

I think one of the problems is the huge backlog in standard passport processing.

Huge backlog? My wife applied for her passport in the Spring (around March or so), and she received it in the mail in less than 1 week. She did NOT pay for expedited processing.

Even if backlog was the rationale, that's not an excuse to create a subclass of passport (the card) which can be issued with less stringent processing. All that will do is increase the probability that someone who shouldn't be issued a passport will get one. It has the potential to make it easier for those individuals to pass between the US and nations whose geography, because of shared borders on land, poses a larger threat to our security and sovereignty than nations with which air or sea travel are required to move back and forth.