| Passports and Travel |
Passport and Tracking Travel Information (December 2006 Information): Question: I noticed in some of the stories on the new passenger risk assessment that, according to David Sobel at the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (main website www.eff.org) that a risk assessment could affect licenses, not to mention any Secret clearance you'd need to defend a detainee. Answer: It isn't clear what these scores will be used for, although presumably they will be used in deciding whether to give permission to travel, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also recently proposed to require: Eventually these various DHS rule-makings to restrict and track travel, and to demand ID, may become of considerably more relevance to military law, as barriers to attempts to seek sanctuary or asylum in Canada or other countries by military resisters or potential future draft resisters. The first phase of this will be effective January 23, 2007, when passports will begin to be required for international travel "by air or sea" between the USA and Canada, Mexico, or elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. No later than June 1, 2009 (the final rule has not yet been published), passports will be required for all travel across the U.S. borders, even by land. For people who want to keep their options open: get a passport. More on the final rule for the "Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative": http://papersplease.org/wp/2006/12/05/dhs-dismisses-the-right-to-travel/ Comments of the Identity Project: http://hasbrouck.org/IDP/IDP-WHTI-comments.pdf
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