11.22.2006

More Delusions Of Safety: Better Have a Passport Or Else

The Bush Administration still has no plans for checking the cargo going into the belly of our airplanes where real nastiness could be placed but they will make you show a passport when returning from Canada or Mexico. Imbeciles.

Nearly all air travelers entering the U.S. will be required to show passports beginning Jan. 23, including returning Americans and people from Canada and other nations in the Western Hemisphere.

Until now, the department had not set a specific date for instituting the passport requirement for air travelers, though the start had been expected to be around the beginning of the year.

Setting the date on Jan. 23 pushes the start past the holiday season.

The requirement marks a change for Americans, Canadians, Bermudans and some Mexicans.
Currently, U.S. citizens returning from other countries in the hemisphere are not required to present passports but must show other proof of citizenship such as driver's licenses or birth certificates.

Visitors from most countries in the hemisphere are required to show passports. However, people from Canada, Bermuda — and those from Mexico who enter the U.S. frequently and have special border-crossing cards — have been allowed to use other forms of identification, including driver's licenses.
The only thing that would make me and millions of Americans actually feel safer was if we shitcanned Department of Homeland (In)Security chief Michael Chertoff AND President Bush and the rest of this corrupt, greedy administration.