Concerns raised over U.S. State Department proposal

YubaNet ^ | April 4, 2005 | eTurbo News

[tomball]

The Business Travel Coalition (BTC) Sunday filed comments with the U.S. State Department on behalf of government and private-sector organizations concerned that Americans would be required to have radio frequency identification (RFID) chips embedded in their passports.

BTC also wrote directly to Secretary Condoleezza Rice urging her to heed the concerns of experts and abandon further consideration of a deeply flawed policy. Nuclear engineers, security experts, intelligence officers, privacy advocates, academics, scientists and business travelers are among the 40 organizations and individuals who provided comments via BTC to the Department. (See BTC letter to Secretary Rice and Department filing at http://btcweb.biz/rfid.pdf.)

The Department's proposal would put Americans traveling abroad at risk of identity theft and physical harm. The chips would be able to be read by anyone with a powerful reader from up to 60 feet away in airports, hotels or anywhere a business traveler might frequent. Terrorists, criminals and kidnappers would be able to easily identify Americans from other foreign nationals.

BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell wrote to Secretary Rice, "On the prudent advice of your organization, American business travelers have taken steps when traveling abroad to maintain a low profile. While most U.S. citizens do not expect their government to protect them while traveling in foreign lands, they do not expect to have their government knowingly put them in harm's way."

The Coalition also brought its concerns to the attention of the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House Committee on Appropriations, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Senate Committee on Appropriations and Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation.