Information Week reports that the State Department plans to begin issuing passports with chips containing biographic information later in the year. Maura Harty, testified at a Congressional hearing Thursday that the United States needs to take the lead in issuing the new passports to encourage other nations to do likewise. Doing so, she says, will help secure our borders against terrorists and other potential troublemakers. Harty told member of the House Government Reform Committee's hearings on the government's US-Visit program, which requires many foreigners entering and leaving the United States to have their fingerprints and face electronically scanned.

We recognize that convincing other nations to improve their passport requires U.S. leadership both at the International Civil Aviation Organization and by taking such steps with the U.S. passport. Embedding biometrics into U.S. passports to establish a clear link between the person issued the passport and the user is an important step forward in the international effort to strengthen border security.

Of course, biometrics is foolproof and fingerprinting your citizens is going to improve border security how exactly?! Another example of a fallacy typical of the statists that if only we had total surveillance, then no crime, threat or terrorism would be possible. Balls, balls, balls.

Sorry for the outburst, it is just one stupid statement by a state official too many... Sadly, I am sure there are many more to come.