Proposed forms for passport application

[asterroc]

q10 and seekingferret, you'll want to read this.

The US State Department is proposing a new Biographical Questionaire for everyone applying for a passport. The form would require all citizens to provide the name and contact info of all previous employers, the address of all previous residences, and addresses of all immediate family members (parents, step parents, siblings) and their citizenship status. In addition, naturalized citizens will need to provide the address of their place of birth, and anyone not born in a medical facility will also need to provide their mother's residence a year before and after your birth (presumably so the government can track those citizen children of fence-hoppers who wish to travel abroad), and contact info for witnesses (presumably so the government can strip your citizenship if you don't provide the info or if they're illegal immigrants who the government can bully into recanting the story of your birth in the US).

A lot more info is available here, including the full form and links to submit comments:
http://papersplease.org/wp/2011/03/18/state-dept-proposes-biographical-questionnaire-for-passport-applicants/

The comment I submitted:
The information requested by this document is ridiculous, and the gathering of the information is prohibitively difficult to obtain.  I am only 33 years old, but I have had six employers in five different states and it would take me around an hour to track down all their contact information. In addition I have lived at somewhere between 10 and 20 different residences and it is not possible for me to find all those addresses.  This high number of jobs and residences is primarily a result of my being in academia, and this form is systematically biased against academics and will stifle international cooperation and research as a result.  In addition, it will seriously hurt naturalized citizens and US-born citizens with foreign parents.  There is no need for this level of detail unless the government is deliberately attempting to prevent the movement of it's citizens, in violation of the UN charter of basic human rights.  

Edit: There is some question about whether this policy might only apply to people unable to provide traditional forms of proof of US citizenship, or whether it would really be all US citizens looking for a passport. There is also some question about the validity of the supposed form hosted at the above link. Unfortunately the .gov website doesn't actually contain any information about what it is we're supposed to be commenting on - what is the form, who would it apply to, etc.

Comments

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

D: It's a -passport-, not an application for a high level security clearance!

[rosefox]

More details in the comments here. In particular, it would NOT be for everyone applying.

[q10.livejournal.com]

presumably so the government can strip your citizenship if you don't provide the info or if they're illegal immigrants who the government can bully into recanting the story of your birth in the US

that's nowhere in this. it sounds like the worst they're going to do is refuse to issue you a passport. which is plenty bad, but fairly different from being stripped of citizenship.

[q10.livejournal.com]

this sounds really scary, but i'm a little nervous about the relative lack of references to sources. the page you linked has a link to one very general description of the proposed form at a .gov domain, but all of the links to specifics re PDFs hosted by their own domain name. in particular, they don't give any from-the-government reference for why they think this birth and employment information will be required. i don't trust the government, but i don't trust random people who panic about things on the internet either. i'm trying to find some kind of actual evidence that their description of what's being planned corresponds to what's actually being planned, but so far there's very little on the web linking back to authoritative sources.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Of course, you already have to provide place of birth (and if you don't have a previous passport, a birth certificate or naturalization certificate--and you need a birth certificate for the latter--which would typically contain your address of birth), and names of parents and places of parents' birth.

I'm really lucky that my parents have maintained up-to-date passports for me basically since birth (since most of my dad's family does not live in this country), because without that I don't know how I would have ever gotten a driver's license, let alone renewed my passport the one time I've had to as an adult. None of what they currently ask for seems outright unreasonable to me, but that doesn't mean I have--or even have access to--all of it, either. But I get through a lot of hoops for free just by having an old passport.

At the same time, although annoying, inappropriately intrusive, and somewhat irrelevant to the passport document (and for those second two reasons, I don't think they should require it), most of this new stuff you list actually sounds easier to get than what's already required. I mean, do you know how hard it is to get a birth certificate if they won't accept a photocopy? I know it's hard enough that I've never actually seen my birth certificate.

And then there's the information they wanted for my dad's Israeli passport renewal. Which he flat-out refused to get, as it would have required a couple plane trips galavanting around the East Coast (my dad lives on the West Coast), and also would have caused a huge amount of trouble for the entire rest of the family. But they'd already printed my dad's passport, so they just made a note in his file to ask him for that stuff next time he renews. He's hoping they'll have lost that note in 10 years and he won't need it next time, either.

[jennekirby.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? ALL previous employers? It's definitely not just academics who will have trouble with that.