I also do not like the price, especially for a family of four! I just don't see how a driver's license and birth certificate aren't good enough. What's the difference? A "terrorist" can apply for a passport too, and get one. So that only leaves the obvious. It's got to be about money. I think the government already gets enough of ours.

my freind's daughter works in us customs in singapore intercepting nasty things in shipping containers before they get here ;mostly bs unlicenced chinese copies of name brands ; BUT :  she and her co workers are of the opinion that this year there will be another attempted strike here in the continental 48 -   they say there is stuff captured and stopped we dont hear of. they wont talk of it .     

i dont think passports with a smart chip at the border is extreme at all , better still if backed up by real snipers (not the kind you see on tv) in towers with rapid reaction forces on standby at all times .

     check out the website   debka.com   you will be amazed at what you dont know .  

                         wise old mike

 

Sorry man-I ment to poste this

Teen says he walked past inspectors

5/31/2003    
   
   LEWISTON - Federal officials were investigating a possible breach of border security after a Canadian teenager claimed to have slipped undetected past inspectors at a high-traffic checkpoint. Janet Rapaport, a U.S. Customs Service spokeswoman, said the 17-year-old was found by Niagara Falls police Wednesday. The teen, who spoke only French, told authorities he had crossed the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge on foot undetected. Rapaport said the bridge, north of Niagara Falls, is not open to pedestrian traffic. It contains four lanes of highway traffic and is undergoing construction to add a fifth lane. The boy was returned to Canada, Rapaport said. The incident came about two weeks after a 7-year-old boy on a bicycle apparently crossed the border undetected at the Whirlpool Bridge in Niagara Falls, prompting criticism from some lawmakers about security at border checkpoints.

 

BLAST EM FAST make em lern!

Passports will fail to make us any safer than our color-coded panic sys- er, I mean, Our Terror Alert System. There are thousands of MILES of our border that are completely unprotected, unsupervised and unpatrolled. If I were trying to get something across the border, a passport would not be necessary, because I'm going to roll ashore in Oregon where they have 4 State Troopers responsible for patrolling a 500-mile beach all by themselves. Or perhaps the 2,500 mile northern Canadian border, which is only a little more regulated than a preschool duck-duck-goose tournament.

I certainly am not going to go to a heavily travelled border crossing, talk to the authorities, submit myself to governmemt scrutiny, hope my credentials were faked well enough to fool them, AND hope they don't think to look for a bomb in my seat cusions.

All passports will do is inconvenience honest, unthreatening people who follow the rules. [baaaah]

 

             yes of course , the borders are essentialy open , that does not mean that they should not be secured  , or that they are not more secure than we may imagine they are . the bad guys will no doubt exploit the weak links in the chain , again . if allowed . BUT ;

none of that is a reason to not make the use of passports [with encrypted chips] mandatory , perhaps we should remove the restrictions and inconviniences imposed by passport use to europe also , or russia or israel or ?   is it not discrimination if we must have a passport to travel to pensyltucky [fictitous name] but not canada / mexico ?    how must the poor little pensyltuckian  people feel ....      extreme ?       no .

how many other countries out there dont secure their borders - how many allow free travel in and out with out restriction ?         

wise old mike .

quote:

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Originally posted by: me
"Ok, let me see if I understand. In the name of protecting all of us, the government wants us to have pasports to enter Canada. I guess that seems reasonable, you can't be to careful."

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The rub with this whole issues is that some of us have been crossing back and forth over that boarder our whole life. Why would they need any more ID than out plate number that they run before we open the window. What would this do to the Free trade agreement?

quote:

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Originally posted by: myself
"The rub with this whole issues is that some of us have been crossing back and forth over that boarder our whole life. Why would they need any more ID than out plate number that they run before we open the window. What would this do to the Free trade agreement?"

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Clearly two very good points! Now if it were me myself, or should that be I? I understand the need for valid identification. I have a birth certificate, ss card and a drivers license that are legal forms of ID. The last two can't be obtained without the first. But starting next year I won't be allowed to take my kids or visiting relatives from Idaho to see the veiw from Canada of the falls. Maybe great aunt Betsy can't afford the hundred bucks and now will never see the great view of a natural wonder. Let's be reasonable here.

     so , this is kinda like haveing hundreds of mosquitos in your house , with zillions more outside waiting to come in and feed on your self , then you discover the concept of doors , yes it will be a pain to open and close the door when you want to go outside or inside and a few mosquitos may slip in during the short time the door is opened so that you can go in or out , BUT , most of the mosquitos out there in the world will not be coming inside your home and after a while the mosquitos that remain in your home will be detected and killed by your self . doors are not free .

                 freedom is not free .                   wise old mike  

no ;

i did not say we should not leave or enter , i said install doors .    to control what leaves and enters ,      if you choose to go out or come in , just open and close the door behind yourself.         if you dont have a passport (key)  "door no open for you" ,

      i need a key to operate my cars , open my house -    i dont see a problem .

i dont get the birdseed thing ,     maybe to attract mercenary birds to solve a mosquito problem ?    mercenary birds leave mercenary bird poop ..... be sure to wipe your feet ....and mercenary birds still want to eat after they run out of mosquitos ..... what then ?

 we have our own military to do that kind of thing , free them to do their job of locating and exterminating the mosquito nesting areas .                        if the nesting areas are unreachable due to political considerations - use our diplomacy to apply "stress" to the parties involved until either they clean out the nesting areas or they allow our military to do it .

after we install the doors and learn to use them , we need to discover windows and screens ....   bug spray is not allowed ...

Ya know who had passports? The 19 hijackers blamed for the 9/11 attacks.

Ya know who else? 3 supposed terrorists detained at the border last week.

I have a passport. I'm legally authorized to cross international borders. What if I decide to smuggle some C-4 across the border or help to destroy the power project? Did the passport do a single thing to prevent it? It cost me money, that's about it.

A passport won't stop someone from wreaking havok on our country. It won't deter them. It won't even be a liability in their plans. It'll just dent their wallets

First of all, I'd like to say it's nice to see PT back around. We've missed her.

Second, I don't think she was joking - I think she makes a valid point.

That said, I still favor the passport idea ... just at a lower cost ... or billed annually instead of paying the $100 all at once.

quote:

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Originally posted by: Paper Tigress
"Ya know who had passports? The 19 hijackers blamed for the 9/11 attacks. Ya know who else? 3 supposed terrorists detained at the border last week. I have a passport. I'm legally authorized to cross international borders. What if I decide to smuggle some C-4 across the border or help to destroy the power project? Did the passport do a single thing to prevent it? It cost me money, that's about it. A passport won't stop someone from wreaking havok on our country. It won't deter them. It won't even be a liability in their plans. It'll just dent their wallets"

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if you really know where to purchase C4 somewhere "across the border" you need to phone    1-866-SAFE NYS   and let them know also .  that phone# is real , not a joke .  

   many of the errors that allowed 9-11 to happen have been corrected - the same scenario could not be repeated now .   the state department policies have been "modified"   i am sure Mrs Rice has included many "improvements" already with more to follow .