Passport rules postponed further until mid-2009

The huge backlog on issuing passports has forced the Senate Appropriations Committee to suspend the new passport rules until mid-2009. Now U.S. travelers entering the United States by land or sea from Canada and other neighboring countries can make do without a passport until then. Many people have been forced to cancel their travel plans because of the backlog in the passport office. Congressional offices have been busy by calls from constituents whose passport requests were caught up in a backlog as U.S. citizens scrambled to get passports. The new passport requirement for land and sea travel, which would also mean Canadians traveling into the country would have to show passports or high-tech identification that could be scanned at borders, was supposed to begin on Jan. 1, 2008. Since then the passport distribution program began creaking under the weight of unprecedented demand, sputtered, slowed and then ground to a halt. An estimated six million more Americans will require passports for air travel, according to U.S. government estimates, but when requirements are brought in at land border crossings, that demand will rise more than fourfold, to about 27 million passports over five years. The government should have fulfilled the job of compiling the passports before strongly enforcing such border policies. Security concerns should not necessitate such discomfort for the local people. The policy is obviously dysfunctional. Source: Msnbc
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