*EPF313 06/16/2004
Congress Reconsiders Deadline on Introducing Hi-Tech Passports
(House votes to extend deadline to October 2005) (1020)

By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to support a Bush administration request to extend a deadline for requiring the adoption of more secure, technologically sophisticated passports. The lawmakers are granting an extension only half as long as the administration sought, however, and are raising many broader questions about the entire system of visa issuance and border security.

In a simple voice vote June 14, the House approved and sent to the Senate a bill that extends from October 2004 to October 2005 the deadline for adoption of biometric identifiers in passports issued by the United States and 27 other nations participating in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).

The deadline for implementation of more secure and technologically advanced standards in passports was set in the Enhanced Border Security Act of 2002. Over the last few months, the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security have asked Congress for an extension to October 2006 because the development of the new passports and the machines to read them wasn't proceeding rapidly enough for 2004 implementation.

Congress responded, but with undisguised reluctance.

"Our friends need to know we need them to move forward with all deliberate speed," said Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California. Speaking to representatives of the Department of State and Homeland Security at a hearing of the House International Relations committee June 15, Sherman said the extension of the deadline is necessary, but it marks a U.S. failure to meet the biometric standard in production of passports for its own citizens and a failure to convince friendly nations of the security imperative that the new standards represent.

Department of State representatives have appeared before lawmakers several times over the last few months making the case for extension. One reason they've cited for delay in development of the technology stems from the fact that international agreement on universal standards only came in mid-2003 from the International Civil Aviation Organization. That left nations only 17 months to design, develop, test and produce new passports, a process that ordinarily takes years.

Catherine Barry, director of the Office of Visa Services at the Department of State, told the committee her agency still urges a full two-year deadline extension in implementation of the machine-readable, biometric identifier passport. "Rushing a solution to meet a one-year extension virtually guarantees that at least some of these systems being developed will not be interoperable," she said.

Nations are not working independently in the pursuit of more secure passports. The nations in the Visa Waiver Program -- the developed nations of Western Europe, plus Australia, Japan and several other prosperous countries -- also want to make sure that the passports developed by each nation can be read and decoded by machines being operated at ports of entry in other nations.

Barry said the Department of State projects that it will be able to begin the first production of biometric, machine-readable passports in February 2005, followed by a testing period and full production in December 2005.

Sherman asked whether the State Department could guarantee results on that timeline, but Barry said the new documents are testing entirely new territory in identification technology.

"I can not promise, sir, because no one has ever used this technology before. But I can promise you that this is the timeline we have laid out," Barry said.

The new passports will use facial recognition technology which pushes the standard photo identification card to a new level of sophistication. Rather than a border official using his own vision and judgment to compare a traveler's face to a passport photo, a camera at the port of entry captures each traveler's image, then a computer validates the facial characteristics of the individual presenting the passport against the passport itself and against the databases maintained by the country that issued the passport.

Lawmakers on the House International Relations Subcommittee expressed concern about more than biometrics standards and their date of implementation. Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Elton Gallegly, a Republican from California, suggested a "top down review of the [VWP] to determine vulnerabilities."

Several known terrorists have entered the United States from European nations under the VWP, and lawmakers are questioning whether this compact with other nations is really in the best security interests of the United States. The program began in 1988 as a strategy for reducing the volume of visa requests and the bureaucratic workload of processing them. Nations are eligible for participation when they establish a record of low visa refusal rates and of low risk of attempted illegal emigration to the United States by their travelers.
"We certainly recognize that there is a risk involved [in the VWP], but we believe that it's a low risk, and with the totality of security measures that affect this population, it's a risk that can be managed," Barry said. The visa services official said the VWP allows consular and immigration services to focus more of their attention on populations that present higher risks for illegal immigration or security threats.

Growing skepticism from lawmakers about the merit of the VWP was balanced by testimony from the Travel Industry Association of America. Bruce W. Wolff, who is also with the hotel chain Marriott International, cited studies showing that a discontinuation of the VWP and the resulting decline in tourism and travel to the United States would cause losses of $28 billion and 500,000 jobs to the economy.

More than money is at stake in the VWP, Wolff said. "It also fosters goodwill with those nations, and helps millions of people from around the world experience the best of American history, culture and our values---- one of the most effective means of winning hearts and minds at this critical juncture in our history."

Wolff also emphasized the serious loss of life and property suffered by the tourist industry as a result of the September 2001 terrorists attacks to underscore the trade's concern about strengthened homeland security.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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