Posted on 11/20/2005 5:44:13 AM PST by Libloather
Passport plan won't better border security
The Saratogian, 11/20/2005
Imagine having to show a passport to visit a friend or relative or go to a business luncheon.
That's what residents along New York's northern border face because of the proposed Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. While a driver's license or birth certificate is all that's needed now, the initiative would require passports by 2008 at all land crossings into the United States.
This is an effort to block terrorists, but it's a stumble in homeland security that ignores actual gaps in border protection. Terrorists tend not to bother with niceties such as entering the country legally. The demand to produce a passport probably wouldn't stop them.
Having to obtain a $97 passport would, however, stall tourism and commerce between the United States and Canada, our country's biggest trading partner. Just two hours north of Saratoga County, trucks, buses and cars stream between New York and Canada. It's an area of the state where people routinely 'go abroad' to eat dinner or attend a hockey game.
The northern edge of the state is also an economically challenged region. Any deterrent to tourism or trade is going to hurt a lot of New Yorkers.
The proposal has not been well received in Canada, either. Quebec Premier Jean Charest recently met with Gov. George Pataki in Albany for an economic summit. According to The Associated Press, Charest called the initiative 'an impediment to travel and trade.'
Pataki, U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton and residents across the state are urging the government to find a more practical, less expensive option than passports.
The northern border is beyond question the nation's longest and most poorly guarded area. It absolutely should have more surveillance, more guards, tighter inspection and better sharing of information. Requiring casual day-trippers to flash a passport won't resolve any of those issues, though.
Security is the priority, but travel can be convenient as well as safe. An upgraded driver's license or a national ID card with a photo could be an alternative in this circumstance and would be more useful in everyday life.
And obtaining a national ID card wouldn't? Some folks just don't think things through...
I actually find the passport LESS invasive than the driver's license. The Passport does not have my address on it. It doesn't tell anybody whether I drive or not. It is good for ten years. It is not cross-linked the ways drivers' licenses are. It does indicate citizenship, which a driver's license does not.
They should reduce the fee for the Passport.
The problem with that is on the Canadian side. THEIR passports expire in five years, and if you need a new birth certificate, to renew, the wait for the birth certificate can be five months! In Ontario, all birth certs are processed in Ottawa. Mine was obtained in the city of my birth in Connecticut in five minutes by a nice lady behind a counter with a selectric, stamp and photocopier.
"Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton and residents across the state are urging the government to find a more practical, less expensive option than passports...a national ID card with a photo could be an alternative in this circumstance and would be more useful in everyday life."
That's all you need to know. Well, at least until some jackbooted moron from McHomeland Security demands to know 'vere are your papers?'
No passport, more illegals.
More illegals, more bankrupt hospitals,
More bankrupt hospitals bigger push to socialized health care.
A passport doesn't fit in a billfold.
Neither does a cell phone, but that doesn't stop people from carrying one 24/7 everywhere they go.
I have a valid passport. I have had a valid passport since I turned 18.
Whether it is required or not, I always take my passport anytime I leave the country. To Canada. To Mexico. Anywhere that is not the USA.
$97? So what?
One other reason to have a Passport for going to Canada. A couple of years ago, I was caught going 34 in a 20 zone. Because it was a school zone, there was a mandatory court appearence. The drivers' license is taken as bond, your citation becomes your temporary drivers license. Before the court date, my father-in-law died in Canada, and I had to go to the funeral. I would have had a fun time trying to explain a speeding citation as a driver's license to the customs folks in Edmonton.
Identity documents shouldn't be useful in "everyday life" -- they should be reserved for special occasions (voting, border crossing) where the government has a legitimate need to require proof of identity.
An ID Brick the size of a paperback book would be acceptable (as a national ID card would not) precisely because the former resists "mission creep" by design -- most people would have to specifically remember to bring it on the few occasions where the authorities could properly demand to see it, and thus the authorities would find it impossible to make such demands on other occasions.
Again, that is a good thing -- see my previous message.
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