Passport Rules Would Bolster High-Tech Security Borders

[steve2470]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB2L3OOICE.html

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) - Millions of Americans like Kathy Currier could soon run into trouble returning home from Canada because they don't have passports.

On a recent trip back across the border, Currier, 49, cleared security screening with her driver's license and birth certificate. But if she needs a passport in the future to get back into the United States - as the Bush administration has proposed - the Michigan factory worker isn't sure the trip would be worth the $97 cost of a passport.

"I'm a single mother, working a job, and I really wouldn't put out the money if I didn't have to," said Currier, of Sturgis, Mich., after her visit to the waterfalls at one of the busiest crossing points on the U.S.-Canada border.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Homeland Security Department has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on high-tech equipment to bolster security on the nation's 5,000-mile northern border. But a decidedly low-tech solution - requiring tamper proof passports from all who enter the United States - is among its most controversial security proposals.

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[havocmom]

1. And it won't make anybody safer until the cargo containers get inspected!

Most cargo containers coming into US ports go un-inspected. You could smuggle a small army & equipment into port cities! But to do the job, they would have to hire people. Payroll is harder to steal from than purchase orders for tech gadgets, so no boots on the ground where security could actually be improved.

This business of empty security gestures that the average person will have to deal with only serves to try and keep people afraid of the boogey man. It does not make anyone safer. And so long as $$ is end all in our culture, there will always be some officials somewhere willing to take a bribe to get 'papers' for someone who shouldn't really get them.

Am thinking the business of making travel so vexing is a round-about way of creating a new Iron Curtain around Americans so they can't learn what is going on beyond what the corporate media and fascist state wants them to know and others cannot see what is going on in the US.