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Damaged US Passport Chip Strands Travelers
caseih writes "Damaging the embedded chip in your passport is now grounds for denying you the ability to travel in at least one airport in the U.S. Though the airport can slide the passport through the little number reader as easily as they can wave it in front of an RFID reader, they chose to deny a young child access to the flight, in essence denying the whole family. The child had accidentally sat on his passport, creasing the cover, and the passport appeared worn. The claim has been made that breaking the chip in the passport shows that you disrespect the privilege of owning a passport, and that the airport was justified in denying this child from using the passport."
“This is done for national security, for whatever reason they can’t make an exception, period,”
They flew from Denver to Dallas without a problem, then were stopped in Dallas. If they can't make an exception, why were they allowed to get on the first plane?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Does it really make a difference which incompetent and/or indifferent bureaucrat screwed this family over?
Will it stop happening? Will these people be made whole without spending thousands of dollars and perhaps dozens or hundreds of hours fighting it?
Let's face it, the default state of the American citizen and consumer is "screwed", and you must start from there.
And people keep voting, with their wallets and with their ballots, for more of the same.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
TFA also states:
Ray Priest, owner of International Passport Visas in Denver, said your passport isn’t actually yours at all; it belongs to the US government.
“To have a passport is privilege, it’s not entitled to you by citizenship,” Priest said. He said the issue may be with a microchip embedded in the back of all new passports. “They have no reason in the world to let you travel if it’s been damaged,” Priest said. “It’s like cutting your photo out or something if that chip doesn’t work.”
These people wanted to leave the country. By no means should we ever prevent someone from exiting when they want to, passport or not. If you don't have a passport, just don't expect to return.
Paper
Can survive being crushed, sat on, folded, spun, submerged in water, thrown up on, run over by a car, heated to several hundred degrees, frozen to near absolute zero, exposed to intense radiation, and the data stored on paper can be read with no special tools under a wide variety of environmental conditions, or using simple tools like a 'lens', can be read at distances of up to several hundred feet or more.
RFID
Can be used with a scanner that has a range of only a few inches. If any part of the chip is damaged, the data is irretrievable. Costs more than paper. Can be destroyed in everyday use, including sitting on it, folding it, getting it wet, etc.
Which one would you pick for storing sensitive information which, if made inaccessible, has the potential to prevent you from ever seeing your loved ones, your home, or any of your possessions again?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I know this will go unheeded because it's what people don't want to hear, but the US Government had nothing to do with this case.
The child was denied clearance by an airline employee, not an actual customs agent. And the person who claims that a damaged passport is "disrespect" to the privilege of holding a passport is some whackjob I've never heard of who owns a small business that specializes in... wait for it... passports and visas! The online ratings for this guy's business classify him as a Grade A jackass, as well.
This is an overblown, almost-manufactured attempt at criticizing the government for its national security policies. It's really much more akin to blaming the local beef farmer because my steak was overcooked.
"Disrespect for the document"? It's a fucking document, not a person. I have no reason to respect a document. Especially one that I bought and paid for myself, with my own time and money.
As long as it's legible and you can see my photo, that's all that should matter. These people must be the ones who were teacher's pets in high school civics class, right? WTF is the world coming to?
It does make a difference. For all the complaining that the corporations and the government are the same, it's a lot easier to get corporate policy changed than government. If this brings enough attention, the airline may choose to clarify its policy or retrain the individual who refused to accept the passport.
There are times when the letter of corporate policy should give way to good customer service.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
And people keep voting, with their wallets and with their ballots, for more of the same.
How am I supposed to vote?!?!? Let me be clear: I voted for Obama because Obama promised to roll back the damage done by Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales to rights such as habeas corpus. Obama failed to keep his promises, choosing instead to continue in lockstep with those evil bastards. Don't blame me - I voted the best that I knew how to try to correct egregious wrongs - blame the politicians.
And the worst part is, you and I need to vote for him next time, too, because Frothy isn't even pretending to want to restore our civil liberties, instead gleefully enumerating what new restrictions he wants to place on the American people in the name of a "better society" or whatever. (Seriously, the legality of contraception stopped being a topic of political debate in the late sixties. What the hell is going on?)
Ahh, the sharp difference between "bad" and "worse". A two-party system has to be at least twice as good as one-party rule, right?
There seems to be some sort of fetish for 'respect', most commonly(but not entirely exclusively) exhibited by those people who've never deserved a dose of it in their lives. I don't know exactly why this crops up; but it definitely does. It's bad enough when those people demand respect for themselves regardless of desert and sometimes by force; but when they give up on that and hitch their self worth to a god or a flag or something they become truly insufferable.
This is exactly what I thought of as well. When owning a passport is becoming a privilege, you're on your way down a very slippery slope...
A damaged passport is unusable, period.
Excellent example of using ", period" to mean "everything I just said only makes sense if you don't think about it at all so for the LOVE OF GOD please don't!"
The enemies of Democracy are
And people keep voting, with their wallets and with their ballots, for more of the same.
How am I supposed to vote?!?!? Let me be clear: I voted for Obama because Obama promised to roll back the damage done by Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales to rights such as habeas corpus. Obama failed to keep his promises, choosing instead to continue in lockstep with those evil bastards. Don't blame me - I voted the best that I knew how to try to correct egregious wrongs - blame the politicians.
You should vote against both Kang and Kodos.
Voting anything but a 3rd party (or independent) is perpetuating the system.
How did this get labeled Insightful? The Federal Government is requiring many Catholic organizations to provide contraception in the policies they provide their employees. Because these organizations pay at least partially for these policies, they are being required to pay for contraception. The slimy move to say it doesn't have to be in the policy, but has to be provided for free it just bull and every one knows it.
I have less than zero sympathy, because I was forced to pay for the invasion of Iraq, with all the subsequent aftermath of at least 4 million people displaced from their homes, hundreds of thousands killed, worse living conditions than before, and women's rights brought down to the standard of other countries in the region.
And I'm supposed to support Catholic organizations' mission to deny birth control coverage for their employees? Not gonna happen.
It is most certainly not a privilege.
The right to travel, the right to leave any country, and the right to return to your own country are fundamental human rights defined by the UDHR. These rights may not be respected, but that doesn't change their nature as rights.