All these news stories about terrorists getting around on fake passports begs the question: Why are our passports so unsecure? You could never get a fake $20 bill past a trained security personnel with some sort of verification system. Am I missing something?
They have an awful lot of money to throw at the problem. Plus it is sufficient for their purposes to start with a good document (possibly stolen) and only change the photo.
There are measures that the US could take to make the cost/time involved in making fake passports prohibitive. Hell, the DMV in NYC keeps a photo on file.
Aha, further research reveals there will be new passport security measures in place by 2006:
To outline the differences between passports and money:
- Passports have to be made in a number of localised centres and contain information specific to a particular person. Banknotes are identical other than a serial number.
- Passports differ (but need to be recognised) for every country of the world. Your grocery store might be able to recognise a fake buck but how about a fake Guatemalan Quetzal??
- Even new high-tech passports will have to have low-tech representation of data as well for that summer trip to Azerbaijan.
P.
Also - those of us that fall under the visa waiver program will have to carry machine-readable passports as of October this year. If we don’t, then we have to have a visa.
Problem is, I think few, if any, EU countries have issued these types of passports.
[Pit Hijack] The paranoia is spreading [PH]