Australia: Passport changes to meet US deadline

[foreigncorrespondent]

Australia is on track to meet a deadline set by the United States to introduce new passport technology or lose visa free entry for Australian travellers.

The technology, known as biometrics, will allow digital photographs and fingerprints to be stored in a passport.

<snip>

The department was responding to an American warning that 27 countries whose citizens did not need visas to visit the US, could lose that privilege if they missed the deadline for extra passport security.

Full article: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/07/1073437346024.html

[Sapphocrat]

1. WTF???

What the bloody freaking #$@%^&!!!?!

I hate this, I hate this, I HATE WHAT MY COUNTRY IS DOING!

(Hello, Secret Service and CIA spooks monitoring DU: I do not hate Bush. I do not wish him or anyone else any harm whatsoever. There is a big difference between hating a policy and hating a person and/or wishing that person harm. I am not a criminal. I am not a terrorist. I am simply an American citizen who woke up one morning in a country that didn't resemble the one I grew up in.)

Goddamn this ongoing stupidity. Where will it stop? Will it ever stop?

Never mind. I know the answer to my own question.

[foreigncorrespondent]

2. Yep.

First we gotta ask permission to the use the dunny, and now we gotta have new passports which will cost the Australian tax payer more to have it. It is stupid! Plain and simple.

[chenGOD]

3. Or of course, Aussies could simply

keep their old passports and not visit USAmerica.

[foreigncorrespondent]

4. Yes they could.

And most probably will. But in my case, I can't. My partner is American and still living there, so some of us have no choice but to follow the rules of King George!

All hail the wanker-in-chief.