US Passport Rules Relaxed as Feds Bungle

After the Al Qaeda murders on September 11, 2001, the US went into a panic over security. In a delayed reaction, the US government decided that American travelers flying to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda would need passports rather than simpler forms of ID like drivers’ licenses effective in January. That’s been moved back to September because the US government couldn’t issue enough passports in time. But when land and sea travelers are added to this, things have exploded. Surely 5 plus years is enough time to get ready for the new rules?

On Friday, the House voted to delay the rules for 17 months with 379 voting “aye” to 45 “nay.” The Senate is supposed to act before it rises for the July 4 holiday. The delay is probably a reasonable move given the bureaucracy’s current position. There’s a 3-month delay in getting passports issued. And only about 12% of the American population has a valid passport.

The people over at the Heimatschutzministerium, those noble Homeland Security folks who’ve done such a good job in making sure everyone at the airport keeps their shampoo in a see-through bag, think the delay is a bad idea. Russ Knocke told USA Today, “There are very bad people in this world who want to find ways to get into our country and kill Americans, and it seems to me that equipping frontline personnel with every tool and authority we can … would be something that any officials at any level of government or in any party would want to do.” And he’s right. Still, terrorists do not arrive in the country from Barbados using US passports. The bad guys of 9/11 didn’t.

That same article read in part, “Huge processing backups at passport centers earlier this month prompted officials to waive the air travel rule until the end of September because thousands of people awaiting passports were canceling vacations or losing money on non-refundable tickets.” Given the choice between national security and losing a deposit on a vacation, most Americans clearly think the national security argument is nonsense.

Maura Harty is the Department of State’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, and she’s in charge of passports. The rules have brought 500,000 applications to her part of the department, and she’s not happy with the 12-week delay this is causing. She said, “The notion of customer service is a sacred part of what we do, and part of a long and very proud tradition,” and she and her people have to balance that against making sure every passport holder is entitled to one. The application increase isn’t her fault; she just gets to clean up the mess. The fault lies with a federal government that took 5 years to decide this change was needed – 5 years, incidentally, during which no act of terror happened on US soil.

© Copyright 2007 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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