On Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:14:31 -0700, dave wrote:

On 04/04/2011 07:03 AM, Sancho Panza wrote:
On 4/4/2011 8:57 AM, dave wrote:
On 04/03/2011 11:23 PM, Jarbidge wrote:
On Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:02:47 -0700, Curt wrote:



I saw it too. The State Department is apparently satisfied that he's
a citz.

Curt

Low threshold of proof...again....

As they are the ones who issue passports their threshold is good
enough for me.

You don't need a U.S. birth certificate to obtain a U.S. passport.

I needed one. They rubbed it.

Others, not so much:

http://rt.com/usa/news/fake-papers-c...passport-even-
after-9-11/

A report issued by the Congressional Government Accounting Office reveals
shocking details of how easily one can get a genuine American passport by
applying using falsified documents at a passport office.

A draft of this report was obtained by The Associated Press.

A government investigator, in order to check the security in post-9/11
America, used documents, among others, from a child and a man who died
over 40 years ago to obtain a passport – and succeeded in all his
attempts.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, security expenses in the US
skyrocketed. Passport security was among many that were a particular
focus since the suicide terrorists that attacked the WTC and Pentagon
used fraudulent driver’s licenses to board the planes.

Now it looks like, to put it mildly, the measures taken were insufficient
and over the past seven years U.S. officials have learned nothing about
passport security and fraudulent documents.

How he did it

The investigator made four attempts to get a passport using a combination
of fake documents and was granted a new passport in all four cases.

In one case, a combination of a Social Security number of a man who died
in 1965, together with both a fake New York birth certificate and a
Florida driver's license, made it possible to get an American passport in
just four days.

Investigators gave it another try by providing the personal information
of a 5-year-old boy to the passport application office, while pretending
to be a 53-year old. He got his new passport in seven days.

The third time he made a two-step operation. He started by obtaining a
genuine Washington D.C. identity card using fake documents – and he did
it. Then he used the card to be issued a new passport in one day.

The final time the investigator used a forged New York birth certificate
along with a fake West Virginia driver's license to complete an
application for a passport which took a little more than a week – just
eight days – for him to receive.

It is unnecessary to mention that fake passports from almost any country
have a great value to the parties involved, from criminals to terrorists.

The U.S. intelligence officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement
state in the report that a badly forged American passport costs about
$300 on the black market while the value of a top-quality forgery could
be as high as $5000.