Passports for All

I hate travel, and this isn't going to help.

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.

The date was disclosed Tuesday by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in an interview with The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department plans to announce the change on Wednesday.

Nice that he decided to give so little notice. This, no doubt, will be a real friggin' mess when enacted. It's only for air travel for now, but will be moved to all travel, land and sea, in two years.

"Right now, there are 8,000 different state and local entities in the U.S. issuing birth certificates and driver's licenses," Chertoff said. Having to distinguish phony from real in so many different documents "puts an enormous burden on our Customs and Border inspectors," he said.

In a few cases, other documents still may be used for air entry into the U.S. by some frequent travelers between the U.S. and Canada, members of the American military on official business and some U.S. merchant mariners.

It will make it easier for the LEO who deal with people entering the US. And it will make it so that there is only a handful of documents that need be duplicated to get in fraudulently. The evidence on the RFID passports indicates that they can be duplicated and it isn't that difficult.

"Could James Bond and Q come up with a fake passport" that could fool inspectors? Chertoff asked, referring to the fictional British spy and his espionage agency's technical genius. Of course, he replied, "Nothing is completely perfect.

"Still, he said that with new technology, it is increasingly difficult to forge passports, and having just one document to scrutinize should make inspection easier for both inspectors and travelers.

I think Chertoff isn't very realistic. This hubris is a bit insulting. He misses the point that most systems that have been designed by man has been faked by others. This week Schneier has two blog entries, one on the UK RFID passport getting cracked and one on the ineffectiveness of the US RFID passport.

Does this make security better? Only in a very minor way. It does make law enforcement's job easier, which should help them at least.