Spot the Foreigner

14 July 2006



State Department’s ePassports are Coming, Be Afraid

Nothing is more American than throwing technology at a problem. Sometimes, it works, and the world is astonished as Neil Armstrong walks on the moon. Other times, it fails, and the world wonders why the greatest military power in the world can’t beat a fourth-rate country whose troops dress in black pajamas. The State Department’s ePassport idea, which will be introduced next month, is pre-destined to be an example of the latter.

The ePassport is part of the hysterical response of the US government to a terrorist attack that took place almost five years ago, and which has had no successor on US soil. The concept is to put a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag in each newly issued Yank passport. The reasons for doing this include: reducing human errors at customs and immigration check points, to make counterfeiting of US passports harder, and to speed up the process of entering the country. To achieve this, the RFID tag unites silicon chips with radio antennae to let radio receivers read the data. The ePassport is, in effect, a miniature transmitter.

What no one at State thought about was who was going to receive the broadcast. Bruce Sterling, an expert on RFID, told CNNMoney.com, “If nobody bothers to listen, great. If people figure out they can listen to passport IDs, there will be a lot of strange and inventive ways to exploit that for criminal purposes.” He added, “Basically, you’ve given everybody a little radio-frequency doodad that silently declares ‘Hey, I’m a foreigner’. It’s a great way for unfriendly elements to set up their own RFID scanning systems and pick Americans right out of a crowd . . . If you put an RFID scanner in a doorway or maybe a lamp-post, you can just sit there automatically counting the passing passports.”

State has already issued ePassports to its big shots, and they defend it as any bureaucracy that has put time and effort into a bad idea would. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services Frank Moss, who has one, told the same outlet, “We wouldn't be issuing the passports to ourselves if we didn't think they’re secure. We’re our own test population.” And America wouldn’t invade Iraq if the government weren’t sure it would be a cakewalk and that the Iraqis would welcome US forces with candy and flowers.

The real solution to the problem of passport security is not technological. It’s human. There is no substitute for a vigilant and attentive immigration officer who has been trained to look for certain things. There is no substitute for law enforcement specialists who know how to track down drug traffickers, human smugglers, terrorists, kidnappers and the rest. Of course, they’re hard to find at $10 an hour. RFID tags in passports is the kind of policy that tries to provide security on the cheap by a government that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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