Wow. An article on one of the more dysfunctional bits of DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It's one thing to hear the stories through the various departmental grapevines, but seeing it all in print...

So much for all the great things predicted upon the creation of the new department for immigration enforcement. Of all the former bits of INS, the only one I don't regularly hear bad things about is CIS. (via Debbie Schlussel)  ¶ 21:55

  Forget passport fraud. The real money is in forging financial documents, to the tune of $57 million in this case. That's probably more than Q's annual budget.  ¶ 21:27

  Passports for everyone, effective January 23rd. Any takers for the dates of the first lawsuits? Or maybe a pool factoring in the basis for said suits as well as which interest groups will be involved.

The scary part is this quote:

"Could James Bond and Q come up with a fake passport" that could fool inspectors? Chertoff asked, referring to the fictional British spy and his espionage agency's technical genius. Of course, he replied, "Nothing is completely perfect."

I don't think we have to worry about Q coming up with a perfect forgery, maybe a really cool one with GPS and a self-destruction device just in case. It's Nigerian fraudsters duplicating the stuff at home that's a problem.

While we're on the subject, here's an interesting contrast from the search for passport fraud articles in one of the news sites:

Nigeria: E-passport will check human trafficking. (November 9th)
Cracked It! (November 17th)

Which just goes to show that you can never have anything one hundred per cent secure.  ¶ 20:48

  More bad press for the guardians of America's borders, who are apparently so rude that they're putting foreigners off the entire country. I got an e-mail recently from a British acquaintance who had a few choice things to say about the inspections process at J.F.K. airport, and none of them were pleasant.

I wonder how much of it is due to genuine unpleasantness, and how much comes from how different our entry process is from the rest of the world. Most border control officials barely seem to look up from their counters and almost never speak, while U.S. authorities question (and fingerprint!) almost everyone. And this means a greater likelihood of being turned around from an American port of entry than a lot of other places.

Then again, the country's main airports of entry are through New York, and New Yorkers aren't exactly renowned for their friendliness even within this country.  ¶ 21:29

  My little corner of the bureaucracy has seen rather few adventures lately. It's been more of a long slog. At least it's still better than being in high school, or so I tell myself.

But it looks like my high school days would have been rather different if I'd gone to high school in Loudon County. In which case there's nowhere to go but downhill, kiddies.  ¶ 11:32