Free Republic

Who was present when you were born? Can you remember every address you’ve ever had? How about every place you’ve ever worked? Were you circumcised? What if I told you that those were some of the queries the State Department is proposing for a new “biographical questionnaire” as part of the passport application? Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? It’s true. Take a look: According to BoingBoing, the form is meant for those who, while applying for a passport, can’t produce a birth certificate. “But as the FA suggests,” the site notes, “the circumstances in which people unable to provide a birth...

Olga sez, "The U.S. Dept of State is proposing a new Biographical Questionnaire for passport applicants: proposed new Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history, personal details of siblings; mother's addresses prior to your birth; any "religious ceremony" around time of birth, circumstances of birth including names (as well as addresses/phone numbers) of persons present, & more. Failure to answer can mean denial of passport, & govt reserves right to use this info for 'routine uses.'" Update: Commenters note that this form is specifically intended in lieu of a birth certificate with a passport application; but...

Harris County law enforcement agencies will again crack down on drunken drivers during Christmas and New Year's, but the expanded operations no will longer be limited to holiday weekends. The "no refusal" initiative — a countywide program that expedites search warrants for blood samples from drunken driving suspects who refuse breath tests — now will be in effect every weekend for the next three years due in large part to a grant recently issued by the Texas Department of Transportation to the Harris County District Attorney's Office. The initiative, which also includes funds from the District Attorney's Office, will total...

It's on the AP wire ... Anything higher than a .22 is considered a high power rifle in this request

This video shows one woman slammed to the floor for arguing with a TSA agent. Another 71 year-old man with a knee implant describes how TSA pulled down his pants. A 16 year-old girl with a prosthetic leg has her pants removed.

Pedro Ramirez, Fresno State's student body president, is an undocumented immigrant serving in the position without pay. Ramirez, 23, attends school on scholarships and pays in-state tuition. California is one of 10 states that permit undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition -- a position that was upheld by the state Supreme Court this week. After his election last June, he told the administration he would serve without pay -- a $9,000 stipend -- because he could not lie on employment papers. On Tuesday, an anonymous tip to the college newspaper forced Ramirez to go public.

Napolitano asks fliers for ‘patience’ on body scanners The nation’s Homeland Security chief asked for air travelers’ “cooperation” and “patience” with full-body scanning and pat downs this holiday season amid a growing public backlash that the airport tactics are intrusive. “Each and every one of the security measures we implement serves an important goal,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano writes in a column for today’s USA TODAY, which asks the public to be a partner in defending against terrorism. Will the Dept. of Homeland Security drop the hammer on the unhappy U.S. population and go against the people’s wishes? Will...

A screenshot of one of the images obtained by Gizmodo.  The website Gizmodo has published 100 pictures of body scans taken at an Orlando Federal Courthouse. The scans are not from the "naked scan" machines that the Department of Homeland Security announced were going into 28 airports in the country, earlier this year. Instead, they are much more pixelated and less embarrassing.Still Gizmodo points to TSA's Advanced Imaging Technology's privacy policy, which states that the machines "cannot store, print, transmit or save the" images and that they are "automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely...

A nun, who was raped during the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Orissa, has been asked to prove her identity during the trial. Defense counsel asked the 30-year-old nun to produce her photo-identity card or any other proof during cross-examination to establish that she was the one allegedly raped on August 25, 2008. She had identified her offenders in court on Nov 3. The defense counsel pointed out that her signatures on the police reports do not match and therefore her identity is suspected. “We doubt the identity of the person facing the cross examination as her signature at the court...

A teenager has been jailed for 16 weeks after he refused to give police the password to his computer.Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool, was arrested in May 2009 by police tackling child sexual exploitation.Police seized his computer but could not access material on it as it had a 50-character encryption password.Drage was convicted of failing to disclose an encryption key in September. He was sentenced at Preston Crown Court on Monday. Drage, was arrested when he was living in Freckleton, Lancashire, but later moved to Liverpool.He was formally asked to disclose his password but failed to do so, which is...

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Connecticut state law does not allow pistol permit records to be available to the public. Many states do allow this information to be released, and some media outlets – in a drive to increase page views – have published the full databases including private information simply because it’s “public record.” A journalist at the Hartford Courant suggests the information should be made public, but there is no reasonable reason to do so ... other than continue the stereotype that guns are bad, gun people are a strange lot who must be monitored, and the media's goal of increasing page views...

PAUL Hogan has come out fighting against the tax man, declaring he will risk bankruptcy before he pays. Against his lawyer's advice, Hogan spoke for the first time last night - proving he hasn't lost his sense of humour despite being made a virtual prisoner in Australia. The Aussie larrikin said he didn't owe the Australian Tax Office anything and couldn't afford to pay their bill anyway. Who do you believe - Hoges or the tax office? Let us know in the comments below. "I can't pay it, I can't pay 10 per cent of what they are asking for,"...

SNIP It was a bit unclear what she was referring to, and now her office sends over a statement from her clarifying what she meant and sort of standing by what she said: "The freedom of religion is a Constitutional right. Where a place of worship is located is a local decision. "I support the statement made by the Interfaith Alliance that 'We agree with the ADL that there is a need for transparency about who is funding the effort to build this Islamic center. At the same time, we should also ask who is funding the attacks against the...

Mother dropped Obama from U.S. passport when being American dangerous Documents released by the State Department in two separate Freedom of Information Act requests bolster evidence Barack Obama became a citizen of Indonesia when he moved to the Southeast Asian nation with his mother and stepfather in the late 1960s. In a passport amendment submitted Aug. 13, 1968, Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, identified her son with an Indonesian surname and asked the State Department to drop him from her U.S. passport. The transaction could have been part of an effort by Dunham to obtain Indonesian citizenship for her son....

Count me among those who’d really like to get a good long look at Barack Obama’s college transcripts — not because I think they would provide evidence for any of the crazy conspiracy talk that infests the fringes of our political discourse, but simply because I want to know what the man studied and what his grades were. For instance, I’d like to know whether he took any economics and how he did in those classes. I’m also curious about what his literary studies were: especially, I’d like to know whether the man who wrote two self-important memoirs before he’d...

A man accused of swiping an Apple iPhone out of a woman's hand in San Francisco may have been shocked when police found him only nine minutes later. It turns out the phone had been tracking his every move. The iPhone was being used to test a new, real-time GPS tracking application, and the woman holding it was an intern for the software's maker, Mountain View-based Covia Labs. Covia CEO David Kahn had sent the intern into the street to demonstrate the software. Police say Horatio Toure snatched it and sped away on a bicycle. Khan was watching a live...

As our daily interactions and transactions have become increasingly “wired,” we have yet to see any truly comprehensive attempts at securing online identities. Our complex system of usernames and passwords is astoundingly outdated and increasingly prone to security breaches and theft. Yet, so far it has been mostly up to the individual to protect himself against various forms of identity fraud—with larger corporations taking relatively little responsibility. But this could change in a big way. Right now the federal government is proposing a new system being referred to as the “Identity Ecosystem”—which was highlighted in the recently-released draft paper, “National...

A Houston woman who works for the Texas Department of Public Safety used her ready access to state driver's licenses for cash, authorities said. Gracie Gutierrez, 27, remained in custody after she was charged on Tuesday with bribery. Gutierrez is accused of accepting bribes to issue driver's licenses to people who are undocumented and have not taken the written or driving exam, said Donna Hawkins with the Harris County District Attorney's office. Also charged with bribery is Saul Ramirez, 20. Officials said he does not work for DPS. Ramirez was arrested while trying to sell a Texas driver's license to...

This week may prove to be the most important week for free speech the nation has ever seen. With a three-way assault being waged on our First Amendment rights, it is little surprise that the Obama administration would use the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Elections Commission to regulate free speech. After all, the Obama administration has made it clear that if you speak out against their agenda, you are an enemy of “progress”. Let’s start with the FTC. This morning, the FTC will hold a public forum in Washington D.C. to discuss the findings...