I recently renewed my passport and was shocked to see the level of security at that place (been over ten years since I was last there).
First off the Passport Office here in Chicago is in the Federal Building where Obama works meaning the place is literally surrounded by the Federal Protection Service and you have to go through metal detectors and x-ray bags. I get that but the Passport Office was its own thing.
The place for the passports had no fewer than three armed guards. Further, these were not lazy guards…they were quite active and observant and making their presence known (very politely but you knew they were there). Further, the guards insisted you turn off your cell phone and actually checked to see that your phone was indeed off (one came to me a minute after I had entered and asked to see my cell phone to verify it was in fact off). Then the passport people were behind conspicuous and very solidly built inch thick bullet proof glass.
So what is the deal with all that? Granted a passport is somewhat of a big deal but it is a passport. What worry over cell phones (except to possibly stop people from chattering away and making undue noise)? Some secret in there they need to prevent me from talking to people about? I needed a number from my cell phone and asked the lady helping me if I could turn it on. She grimaced and said ok but not to let the guards see me do it. Huh?
And bullet proof glass? While they do handle money there it is mostly checks and credit card stuff. I suspect a robber would get more money robbing a convenience store. Not to mention you are still in the Federal Building so on camera all the time and security checked downstairs like in an airport. Further, how could you possibly threaten someone to get a passport? Even if they could make you one on the spot how would anyone possibly get away with that? They’d cancel it as soon as you were out the door.
So seriously…what is the deal? Note there is absolutely nothing else done in this particular office. It is passports and nothing else.
The security downstairs when you enter the building sure. Indeed they always had metal detectors (or have for many years anyway…the Federal Protection Service everywhere are new of course).
I somehow doubt they installed bullet proof glass in such short order to protect the passport people because Obama is somewhere else in the building.
Passport office? What’s that? I’ve gotten my passport overseas at the local embassy, but… passport office? The last time I got my passport, which was around 2004, it was the local post office, manned by a little old lady.
Making passport security all the more puzzling. Can get it at the post office as well which is about 50 feet from the Federal Building where I got it. Thing is I got an overseas trip dropped in my lap with 14 days notice and needed a passport fast…going to this office was the only way to expedite the matter.
Don’t forget cell phones can be used for a lot of thing, including taking pictures, for that matter what looks like a cell phone might not be one at all. It could be a bomb. One could pretend to talk on a cellphone/bomb throw it and run. If the cell phone isn’t to be used and is stuffed in your purse or pocket, well if it is a bomb you’re going with it.
As seen with the terror attack in Bombay, terrorists aren’t all suicide bombers
If you got a cell-phone-that-was-really-a-bomb past security downstairs then having Passport security guys make you turn off your cell phone won’t stop you from anything. It is trivially easy to just turn it on again if you want in there and then do whatever with it. No one would think it a bomb till way too late.
WAG about the cellphones - to stop people taking pictures of the place?
I’m thinking that the actual Passport Office may have something more valuable in it than just a bunch of filled-out passports with peoples photos and signatures in them. They might also have blank passport books, with no details yet added.
I can imagine that to serious crooks a big stack of passport books with no info yet filled in them could be extraordinarily valuable, since you could then use them to create forged passports much more easily than by stealing someones current passport and ripping out the photo (also without the danger of your ‘mark’ reporting the passport as stolen and thus invalidating some of the potential uses of the forged one)
Sorry, but this is the kind of poor reasoning that results in really ridiculous “security” practices being put into place. If there’s any real consideration of cell phones being bombs, the solution isn’t to make people turn them off, it’s to not allow them entirely. It’s not like a bomb in one’s pocket is any less accessible than one held to the ear. Granted, that might actually be the reasoning behind this policy, just like the poorly-thought-out plan of making people carrying potentially explosive liquids onto airplanes empty them into a big garbage can in the middle of a crowded concourse. But it’s still foolish.
My WAG, since this sounds like a fairly major passport facility, is that the raw materials of which passports are made may be significantly more valuable than money. An armed robber could stand to make quite a lot by stealing passport paper.
They ask you to turn your cellphone off because it can take pictures and send messages, and any high-security facility tries to keep people from information and devices that could be used to plan or orchestrate an attack.
Are the passports even made on site? In my country you go to the office to order and pick them up, but they are being manufactured at some other more centralized location. That makes it impossible to steal passport paper from the office.
I’m assuming it’s also just because it’s the Federal Building. A lot of that security went in after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in OK City. No reason to not be vigilant in any given area where a whole ton of citizens will be congregating, I guess.
Henrichek: They’re made on site, or at least were when my husband went there in the '90s. You go to that office for on-the-spot passport needs or other more complicated issues.
Even if they have the passport paper on site they could lock those people in a vault somewhere. The room where you hand in your paperwork still need not be Ft. Knox.
I can see the value in blank passport books. I would think this is a case where you need to go above-and-beyond to maintain the integrity of the system as a whole, because if it’s compromised it would be very bad.