Get & Renew Your Passport Early! FYI:

[Hissyspit]

From my congressman:

If you need any passport information, it is available online at the Consular Affairs Website: http://www.travel.state.gov. To check on the status of your application, citizens can go online or call the State Department passport hotline. The State Department has representatives available at 1-877-487-2778 from 7:00 a.m. to 12 midnight EST, Monday-Friday, except on federal holidays. If you need a passport order within the next two weeks, the State Department recommends calling the hotline to check the status of your application.

As a result of the new requirement (Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative), applications for passports are 44 percent higher than this time last year. Despite hiring some additional passport personnel, the State Department did not anticipate this massive inflow, and they are now advising citizens to allow 10-12 weeks for routine processing and 3-4 weeks for expedited processing. In the past, citizens were advised to allow 6 weeks for routine and 2 weeks for expedited service.

Because of the longer than expected processing time for passport applications, the U.S. Department of State announced last week that U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda who have applied for but have not yet received passports can nevertheless temporarily enter and depart from the United States by air with the government issued photo identification and Department of State official proof of application for a passport through September 30, 2007. This should help speed up the application process.

[Cleita]

1. I know. I applied for mine the first week of May and I probably

won't get it until maybe even as late as the middle of July from what they tell me. The only foreign country I will be visiting is Canada. Now the State Department has removed the provision about needing a passport to travel to several nations including Canada, but I had already applied for it. :shrug: I guess it doesn't hurt to have one, just in case.

[UTUSN]

2. Colin POWELL added on to his resume of fuck-ups

*******QUOTE*******
http://travel.state.gov/passport/eppt/epptnew_2807.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/weekinreview/29macfa.html?ex=1335499200&en=876561d61a49bf27&ei=5088...

The New Passport
Stars and Stripes, Wrapped in the Same Old Blue

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
SAN FRANCISCO

WHEN I went to collect my newly minted American passport, I discovered that it came with a radically altered design that included sheaves of wheat, the rather large head of a bald eagle plus the flag wrapped around my picture. And that was just one page... When Americans do open their new passports, they’ll see a document strikingly different from the old booklet. By July, all applicants will get the new design, with the State Department expecting to issue a record 17 million passports this year, up from last year’s record of 12 million.

The new passport, in the works for about six years, incorporates the first complete redesign since 1993. Given new international standards for post-9/11 high-tech security features, which transform the document into an “E-passport,” the State Department decided it was time for something completely different. The new passport comes with its own name: “American Icon.” It’s hard to think of one that was left out.

The inside cover sports an engraving of the battle scene that inspired “The Star Spangled Banner.” A couple of lines of the anthem, starting with, “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,” are scrawled in what the State Department says is Francis Scott Key’s own cursive. The short, 28-page version of the passport comes with 13 inspirational quotes, including six from United States presidents and one from a Mohawk Thanksgiving speech. The pages, done in a pink-grey-blue palate, are rife with portraits of Americana ranging from a clipper ship to Mount Rushmore to a long-horn cattle drive... “We thought it really, truly reflects the breadth of America as well as the history,” said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services. “We tried to be inclusive of all Americans.”... We think it is a beautiful document as well as the most secure,” Ms. Barrett said. “It’s a work of art.”

Professional designers shown the passport to critique mentioned art as well. “It is like being given a coloring book that your brother already colored in,” said Michael Bierut, of the design firm Pentagram in New York City. A passport, not unlike a scrapbook, gets its allure from gradually accruing exotic stamps, with the blank pages holding the promise of future adventure, he and other designers said. But they find that the new jumble of pictures detracts from that. “There is also something a little coercive about a functional object serving as a civics lesson, even a fairly low-grade civics lesson,” Mr. Bierut said...


The new passport was developed by a six-member committee from the State Department and the Government Printing Office, with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell approving the final icon theme.

[BlueIris]

3. Ew. Tacky much?

The last time I read about the New Revised Standard Passport, I missed the part about a "Mowhawk Thanksgiving speech" being included.

[annabanana]

5. I don't care what it LOOKS like so much. . . does it have a 'chip' in it?

Is there anything scannable imbedded?

[Coventina]

7. Yes, my new passport came with a smart chip.

I'm instructed to keep it out of extreme heat.

[annabanana]

10. So. . If it accidently slipped into a microwave or something

the chip might fry?

[Coventina]

11. I thought of that, but I'm worried that they would make me get a new one

if they find the chip isn't working.

I don't want to have to go through the process AGAIN!

[uppityperson]

6. Tacky

[CC]

15. My nephew's

Grandmother-in-law had decided to take her whole family on a cruise next January (2008), including my nephew. She told them this last Christmas (2006) as it will be their Christmas/Birthday/whatever gift for the next few years. In each card she told her family that if they did not have a passport to apply in January (2007). My mother decided to give the kids the money for their passports as long as they started the process in January. Since both needed to get certified birth certificates (what they had wasn't good enough) and stuff it is good that all the older adults insisted. They have their passports and are ready to go in January 2008. Added benefit, they went to Jamaica a few weeks ago. A. bought the tickets from a co-worker for a very good price because the co-worker's passport hadn't arrived yet. Co-worker has put off their vacation until they have it in hand.

I know a lot of people that as soon as they heard about the rule changes applied early for their passports because they knew it was going to backlog really bad. So the State Department should of known but also those needing passports should of thought a head too.

[Coventina]

4. I applied Feb 8th. It arrived May 14.

Do NOT wait!

Of course, nobody could have anticipated the flood of applications, just because they drastically upped the number of people who would need one.

:eyes:

[mmonk]

8. Done.

Did it awhile back. I've tried to stay a step ahead.

[EFerrari]

9. Rice's State Department is so far behind, there will be a hearing

on it today. They may have to refund those fees for expedited processing. And the projections showed this was going to happen as far back as NOVEMBER. 11/6, they were behind by 350,000. 01/07, that went up to 600,000.

[Coventina]

12. And her excuse will be: "No one could have anticipated

that requiring passports for Mexico, Canada & the Carribean would cause a flood of applicants!"

[EFerrari]

13. "No one could have anticipated Americans would fly planes to

foreign countries - every summer."

[Coventina]

14. okay, yours is better!

:thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

16. Can you believe this person is in charge of the State Department?

I can't wrap my mind around it. She can't even get the paperwork right. :wow:

[Coventina]

18. Grossly incompetent and a liar to boot. You're doing a heck of a job, Condi!

:puke:

[Hersheygirl]

17. I can tell you all how to get a passport in a couple of days.

A friend of mine's daughter got her and her husband their passports in two days. How did she do it, she paid thru the nose. $600.00 it be exact. She paid the $600.00 and got put to the front of line. Applied on a monday and had them on thursday. She sent everything she needed fed-ex to Florida. They had their passports by the time they boarded their plane for Jamaica on that friday.

What I'm wondering is who got the $600.00?

[Matsubara]

19. I've got 8 1/2 years left on mine.

I estimate that by the time I get my next one, it will cost $500 and take 6 months to process, and will probably have all kinds of biorecognition retinal scan crap on it. :eyes:

When my wife applied for her "green card" back in late 2000, it cost hundreds in fees, and even then it took them over 6 months to process, and when we finally got the vaunted, high-tech computerized green card, her name was MISSPELLED. Of course it's almost impossible to contact INS nowadays without going in to an office, so it took forever to figure out what to do. We sent the stupid card back, and it took them a FULL YEAR to get a new one to us.

This is the crappy service that came about because of BILL CLINTON's GOP-lite policies of privatizing and slashing government, and it's only gotten worse under Bush.

When I go to the immigration here in Japan, it takes almost no time, and the fees are low. And Japan is supposed to be the land of xenophobia and isolationism. :eyes: I'm treated much better by immigration here than my wife EVER was by INS in the states. In fact, they treat people like CRAP. Is it any wonder I am now switching to permanent resident status and seriously considering eventual citizenship?