On 04/04/2011 09:20 AM, Jarbidge wrote:
Congressional Government Accounting Office

(You do realize this happened during the GWB admin...)

Summary

A U.S. passport is one of the most sought after travel documents in the
world, allowing its holder entrance into the United States and many
other countries. People attempting to obtain a U.S. passport illegally
often seek to use the guise of a U.S. citizen to conceal their
involvement with more serious crimes, such as terrorism, drug
trafficking, money laundering, or murder. In March 2009, GAO reported on
weaknesses in State's passport issuance process that could allow a
terrorist or criminal to fraudulently acquire a genuine U.S. passport.
Specifically, GAO easily obtained four genuine passports from State
using counterfeit documents. In April 2009, GAO suggested that State
take 5 corrective actions based on these undercover tests and State
acknowledged those corrective actions. GAO was asked to perform
additional proactive testing of State's passport issuance process to
determine if it continues to be vulnerable to fraud. To do this work,
GAO applied for seven U.S. passports using counterfeit or fraudulently
obtained documents, such as driver's licenses and birth certificates, to
simulate scenarios based on identity theft. GAO created documents for
seven fictitious or deceased individuals using off-the-shelf,
commercially available hardware, software, and materials. Undercover
investigators applied for passports at six U.S. Postal Service locations
and one State-run passport office.

State's passport issuance process continues to be vulnerable to fraud,
as the agency issued five of the seven passports GAO attempted to
fraudulently obtain. While there were multiple indicators of fraud and
identity theft in each application, State identified only two as
fraudulent during its adjudication process and mailed five genuine U.S.
passports to undercover GAO mailboxes. GAO successfully obtained three
of these passports, but State had the remaining two recovered from the
mail before they were delivered. According to State officials, the
agency discovered--after its adjudication process--that the two
passports were part of GAO testing when they were linked to one of the
passport applications it initially denied. State officials told GAO that
they used facial recognition technology--which they could have also used
during the adjudication process--to identify the two remaining
applications. GAO's tests show that State does not consistently use data
verification and counterfeit detection techniques in its passport
issuance process. Of the five passports it issued, State did not
recognize discrepancies and suspicious indicators within each
application. Some examples include: passport photos of the same
investigator on multiple applications; a 62 year-old applicant using a
Social Security number issued in 2009; passport and driver's license
photos showing about a 10 year age difference; and the use of a
California mailing address, a West Virginia permanent address and
driver's license address, and a Washington, D.C. phone number in the
same application. These were fraud indicators that should have been
identified and questioned by State. State also failed to crosscheck the
bogus citizenship and identity documents in the applications against the
same databases that it later used to detect GAO's other fraudulent
applications. State used facial recognition technology to identify the
photos of GAO undercover investigators and to stop the subsequent
delivery of two passports but not to detect fraud in the three
applications that GAO received, which all contained a passport photo of
the same investigator.