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US Government To Release Electronic Passport

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-the-better-to-track-you-with dept.

XueCast writes "The federal government has announced that they will release new electronic Passport cards in either April or May 2008. The cards could be read wirelessly from up to 20 feet away, which could reduce the waiting time at border checkpoints. Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State For Passport Services, Ann Barrett said, "As people are approaching a port of inspection, they can show the card to the reader, and by the time they get to the inspector, all the information will have been verified and they can be waved on through.""

6 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. "Waved on through..." by Hamster+Lover · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From TFA:

    "As people are approaching a port of inspection, they can show the card to the reader, and by the time they get to the inspector, all the information will have been verified and they can be waved on through," said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services, commenting on the final rule on passport cards published yesterday in the Federal Register.

    Hahahahaha. You have got to be fucking kidding me. I have been the United States on two separate occasions via air in the last few years and in both cases neither myself nor any of my fellow passengers were ever "waved on through" inspection. Everybody got the royal ass raping treatment and this comment by Ann Barrett is just a bureaucratic pie-in-the-sky sales job for the new passports.

    1. Re:"Waved on through..." by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Insightful
      ya.. spend a few hours in customs and save ten seonds by not having to manually read the passport... efficient use of their resources isn't it?

      but because it's a real pain in the ass being treated like a "suspect" from the minute you drive to an airport until you drive out of one. Now ask me if I think the US is "winning the war on terror"?
      I think we know by now that the "war on terror" isn't going to be decreasing terrorism [it is in fact increasing it] nor is it protecting freedoms or safety, it is in fact eroding freedoms that they never had the right to take away in the first place. sigh... as an American, I hope this never spreads to Canada but judging by recent events, it may indeed happen anyway...
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      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  2. Wonderful. by FriendlyPrimate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh wonderful. Now when I'm overseas, the terrorists can identify me as an American in a crowd from 20 feet away.

  3. Don't see how it will help with lines by Yath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What nonsense. If they could be "verified" by machine, they wouldn't need to stand in line in the first place. Travelers stand in line for physical inspection and crowd control, and the card can't help with that process. Unless it can count the books of matches in my backpack and measure my lithium battery, all it will do is save a few seconds of pulling out my wallet. Sounds neat, I guess.

    --
    I always mod up spelling trolls.
  4. Re:Ummm. by Original+Replica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because the senator's buddies aren't interested in a mark up reselling barcode readers ($80), when they can markup RFID readers.($1700) Besides RFID is so much more tech heavy it's gotta be better. Better security theater that is. Joe Sixpack will be terribly impressed that there is a computer-thingy in his passport.

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    We are all just people.
  5. Re:No air travel?! by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It makes a lot more sense if you think of it in terms of total number of trips and not total number of countries. ...
    It takes 2-3 hours to get everyone off one of those big cruise ships because of the need to get 2000 people through customs at once. This sounds like it could speed that process up. About as helpful as a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.

    The root cause of the problem isn't the number of people, i'ts the lame-ass system in the first place. It's a lot like DRM. People who want to enter the country for nefarious purposes will always have a variety of methods of entry that completely bypass these systems. But thosewho wish to enter legally have to jump through all the hoops. Essentially it punishes the law-abiding citizens and ignores the law breakers. Sure, the system will occasionally catch someone with a felony conviction in their home country who didn't know that would disqualify them from entry. But chances are, those people weren't up to no good, they were just on a trip like any other regular joe and denying them entry doesn't improve the situation at all.
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    When information is power, privacy is freedom.