Detained in Kenya for not looking enough like her passport photo, Canadian Citizen Suaad Haji Mohamud has been trapped in Kenya for 2 months while trying to return home to her adopted country. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne on Jul 24, 2009 - 29 comments

Soup Over Bethlehem - The mloukhieh in the soup bowl represents the shared national heritage and the meal itself becomes a gastronomic anchoring of a Palestinian identity in eternal flux. [via]
posted by tellurian on Apr 2, 2009 - 17 comments

The Governmental Printing Office prints all United States passports but they decided that it was time to outsource part of the work. They claim it is secure [pdf].
posted by mustcatchmooseandsquirrel on Mar 27, 2008 - 22 comments

The guy over at Make Your Nut is facing a dilemma I've wondered about myself: what to do about the security risks that are inherent in the many RFID-chipped credit and ATM cards that banks are so keen on issuing today? There's a lot of evidence out there that indicates that the highly personal information these cards (and the new US passports as well) carry can be stripped away by a thief with a little motivation and access to relatively low-cost equipment. You can go with the nifty RFID-blocking wallets (discussed here previously), or, according to some, you could just grab a hammer.
posted by shiu mai baby on Apr 30, 2007 - 26 comments

RFID is a known security/privacy issue waiting to happen. Bruce Schneier even likes to talk about it on his blog. You can learn how to make your own tinfoil wallets. Or if you haven't the time... you could just purchase a premade one HERE. This vendor also has secure slips for US passports. Very nifty stuff.
posted by thecollegefear on Mar 9, 2006 - 51 comments

RFID+US Passport? By October 2006, the U.S. government will require nearly all of the passports it issues to include a computer chip containing the passport holder's personal information...
posted by yoga on Oct 27, 2005 - 41 comments

How many Americans own passports? Working with passports issued and the US population, it gives an idea of around 20%. Why do so many Americans stay at home?
posted by the fire you left me on Feb 24, 2004 - 98 comments

The requirement to carry passports while visiting US, that will eventually include biometric markers such as iris scans as well as digital photos, leaves Canadians unhappy.
posted by riffola on Sep 23, 2003 - 23 comments

Microsoft altering its ".NET" strategy Microsoft has announced that it's changing its overall use of .NET on its products, as it seems they've figured out that it's confusing to most users or potential customers, and flat out that "many people were unable to figure out just what it was." says the AP Wire. Now they're coming up with a nifty new logo to go with it, and perhaps they'll end up actually competing with IBM in the backend business. For some background on what .NET does, check here.
posted by djspicerack on Jan 9, 2003 - 13 comments

The Passport: the next step in its evolution may include invisible information encoded into your mug shot, but if you are wondering where it all began, the Canadian passport office identifies one Nehemiah of Persia, ca. 450 BC, as candidate for very first passport holder. Some think that it was all downhill from there. Regardless, there might be very good reasons for getting more than one passport, which you can do legally, or less so. Lenin had a fake passport. So did Hitler, though he didn't know it. (More inside.)
posted by taz on Aug 10, 2002 - 5 comments

US Marine Expat Burns Passport In Protest. As the International Court of Justice (ICC) in The Hague officially started operations on Monday, US activist and expat Kenneth Nichols burned his passport in front of the US consulate in Amsterdam.
posted by tpoh.org on Jul 8, 2002 - 15 comments