Passport to be required for offshore fishing???

[Capten]

Saw this on SFC........


Check this out what in the hell are they going to think of next I got this on another website I was looking at, curious if ths is going on in the east coast as well. Where are they going to send somebody comeing back from fishing if they dont carry a passport???

http://www.fox10tv.com/global/story.asp?s=5717690


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Passport to be required for offshore fishing

(AP)LAKE CHARLES, La. Travelers returning from abroad aren't the only people who will need to be carrying passports beginning January eighth.

Deep-sea fishermen who go more than 60 miles into the Gulf of Mexico will need them, too.

Postal Service employee James Coleman says that last month, he issued about 40 passports a day. The previous month, he had issued 40 passports over the whole month.

It's all part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

Colemany says the biggest hitch has been people who don't realize they need a birth certificate with an official government stamp.

All members of a family will be required to have a passport including infants.

 

[thoward]

The USA is a great country but the lawmakers are really putting a damper on our rights.

 

[Wild Bill]

As I see it, there are too many lawyers in goverment and not enough businessmen. Now find a businessman that wants the job.

 

[Bill Allen]

It should be very interesting if it comes to the east coast as a charter boat operator I wonder if I'll be the one that will get the b.s. if someone shows up with out one. Of course with the amount of stuff law enforcement tasked with already who's gonna check? Bill

 

[Wild Bill]

We had a situation here in Port Canaveral a couple years back. It seemed that an over zealous FWC officer decided to check charter boats only. As you went passed him he would ask if you were a charter boat. If you said yes, he would board you. If you said no, he let you pass. No one ever was cited for anything, but it sure didn't help your repeat business. Sometimes they feel like nuts, sometimes they don't.

 

[Genesis]

I'm waiting for real confirmation on this.

My understanding is that the passport requirement has been pushed back ANOTHER year for cruises to the Caribbean (oriiginally after the holidays THIS year).

So who knows. This may be a proposal, it may be a real rule. But until I see something with a cite to the Federal Register or actual legislation, I'm not getting excited about it.

The media OFTEN gets these things wrong.

The big problem with this is not the cost, its for those people who are unable to get passports reasonably. This group is larger than you might think - the State Department will not issue a password to a kid unless both parents sign off on it.

There are roughly 10 million children in this country who do not have any communication with one of their biological parents - in most of those cases the absent parent either can't be found or refuses to cooperate in any material way. Now those kids can't go offshore to fish? Somehow I suspect that's not going to be how this gets actually interpreted - if it fixes the problem with those kids getting a passport, then I'm actually in FAVOR of this change!

 

[thoward]

Just wondering, maybe I am missing something, Why would you want that?

I allready carry a drivers license, a fishing license, a HMS permit, a Documented boat registration, a Florida boat registration, a Social Security Card. I can not understand why they need more. I am cool with it if I go in to forigen waters but if I run from Tampa to Mobile I need a passport? That is BS IMHO.....

 

[Genesis]

Why would I want it?

Because it may force the State Department to fix a problem that has been around now for over 10 years, and for which there is currently no good fix.

Their intentions are good (preventing international child abductions, which are damn near impossible to "undo" when they happen) but in attempting to do this they make it impossible for those 10 million kids to travel internationally - at all.

Soon that will extend to going over the border to CANADA, and when it does, there's going to be trouble. There's a lot of people who cross that border "recreationally" - hell, when I lived in Michigan we were over in Windsor and Ahmerstburg all the time - and if that becomes impossible for many kids who have divorced and most with never-married parents, you can bet its going to get a LOT of attention real fast.

 

[jim rosenthal]

This reminds me of the situation we have here in Annapolis where the local police department sets up a traffic stop with radios and binoculars so that they can catch us driving without our seat belts on. This usually involves four or five squad cars and twelve or fifteen officers. It creates a traffic jam (in a city which, for its size, has a really formidable traffic problem already) and also creates untold ill-will towards the city government. Their argument for continuing to do this is that they catch a lot of folks for whom they have outstanding warrants for other crimes. They could catch those folks, of course, if they would just drive to the area of Annapolis where people sell drugs in broad daylight- but that's too dangerous. They'd rather stop people like me who will pull over when a police officer says to do so, and are far less likely to be carrying a gun in their car. They could also go to Annapolis Mall, where, as it turns out, people are carrying guns as well. However, that doesn't allow them to issue revenue-enhancing citations to people like me who are going to just pay their ticket and feel correctly, that their city government views them as a source of funds rather than a group of people who deserve to be served and protected.

It seems that our goverments and law-enforcement authorities are very good at putting rules in place which make life incredibly inconvenient, but don't protect us any better. No disrespect intended to anyone in the L.E. business- I have friends in the trade- but these rules seem, as far as I can tell, to absolutely defy logic. Which, of course, never stopped the government in the past.

 

[Boss Lady]

Having spent a career in U.S. Army Special Forces, I can tell you that the government is all about procedures and not substance. Our security is a facade, we have no real security mechanisms. This is a perfect example, OK, I am going to show a coastie my passport, big deal, what did that accomplish? How does he know whether it is fake or not? He doesn't. He is going to follow procedures. He is going to look at the picture and see that it matches my ugly mug and hand it back to me, gee I just passed the cursory examination. The next thing he is going to check is to see if I have enough life vests and fire extighisers. Great! I feel much safer, don't you? Unless they are going to put in a computerized system with satelite links to cross reference my information with the disparate databases the government owns what is the point? Hell, we just had four mexicans in a mobile home up here in NC, get caught with 40,000 lbs of marijuana, I wonder how they got that across the border? These guys were construction workers one day, and then they are drug lords the next. The border is a joke. Come on, hasseling rich people out fishing is not going to make us any safer. I think they should put the USDA in charge, they tracked a heifer and a calf that was imported from Canada three years ago to her stall in Iowa, if the USDA can do that why can't Immigration tell you where all our "visitors" are? I have seen the qualifications of many of the new Department of Homeland Security personnel, they might as well work at Walmart, they have ZERO experience or knowledge of real security principles, but they do have college educations! I have seen real professionals who have many years of doing "real" threat analysis around the world in support of government operations get rejected because the new idiot director or department head in charge wants some college kid he can control and will not make him look stupid. Just like the airline security system and TSA, we have no security, but we do have a mighty fine airline annoyance system. got any toothpaste? LORD SAVE US!

 

[Freebird]

As I see it, there are too many lawyers in goverment and not enough businessmen. Now find a businessman that wants the job.

No real businessman is going to give up a job that pays $250k a year for one that pays less than $100k. That's what separates real people from politicians with hidden agendas!

Don't get me started on politics or I'll end up in jail again for sure! "Vote for me and your ride's for free", Reddy Teddy.

Oh well, I suppose it's for the best. The wife has been worried about losing her "Q" clearance as a result of me hanging out with GuzBoy! I reckon we'll have to stay inside the legal limits now!

 

[mike]

Chris, Amen!!! We may be doomed.... I love my country, but am beginning to fear my government,…..because the inmates are running the asylum.

 

[Freebird]

Having spent a career in U.S. Army Special Forces, I can tell you that the government is all about procedures and not substance. Our security is a facade, we have no real security mechanisms. This is a perfect example, OK, I am going to show a coastie my passport, big deal, what did that accomplish? How does he know whether it is fake or not? He doesn't. He is going to follow procedures. He is going to look at the picture and see that it matches my ugly mug and hand it back to me, gee I just passed the cursory examination. The next thing he is going to check is to see if I have enough life vests and fire extighisers. Great! I feel much safer, don't you? Unless they are going to put in a computerized system with satelite links to cross reference my information with the disparate databases the government owns what is the point? Hell, we just had four mexicans in a mobile home up here in NC, get caught with 40,000 lbs of marijuana, I wonder how they got that across the border? These guys were construction workers one day, and then they are drug lords the next. The border is a joke. Come on, hasseling rich people out fishing is not going to make us any safer. I think they should put the USDA in charge, they tracked a heifer and a calf that was imported from Canada three years ago to her stall in Iowa, if the USDA can do that why can't Immigration tell you where all our "visitors" are? I have seen the qualifications of many of the new Department of Homeland Security personnel, they might as well work at Walmart, they have ZERO experience or knowledge of real security principles, but they do have college educations! I have seen real professionals who have many years of doing "real" threat analysis around the world in support of government operations get rejected because the new idiot director or department head in charge wants some college kid he can control and will not make him look stupid. Just like the airline security system and TSA, we have no security, but we do have a mighty fine airline annoyance system. got any toothpaste? LORD SAVE US!

ROFLOL, Dang, I may not even type in a response to that one! It was just worthy of a repeat to keep it at the top of the list!

Hell, people wonder why everybody outside the US seems to hate us. They've never met anyone except our politicians! Solution, keep the politicians at home and send me and Chris over there! We'll show 'em how to get things done! Then we will all have a universal Southern accent that everybody will understand! No more listings of 87 different language directions to the bathroom in Wal-Mart!

Chris Powell for president! I'll be campaign manager and speaker of the house! We'll build a wall that will make the one in China look like a kid's beach castle! Come on boys, mail those contributions to 1700 Oak Hills Drive, Kingston, TN 37763.

Chris!! Chris!! Chris!!

 

[Freebird]

Hey, I really don't want to take this off-topic or talk too much, but I just have to share a story my wife told me a few months ago when she was flying a lot.

She kept getting pulled out of line and having to remove her shoes etc. She may be a terrorist at home, but she is an average white woman with a "Q" clearance and a MBA and is a Six Sigma Blackbelt with Bechtel Jacobs.

After being stopped for like the 4th time in as many trips, she pulled a TSA guy over to the side and asked what the heck the problem was. She then pointed out a middle eastern gentlemen with appropriate head gear had just waltzed through the line without raising so much as an eyebrow. His response was they were only allowed to search a specified number of that particular segment of the flying population. He went on to say that if Osama himself was the next in line after that magic number had been reached, they couldn't touch him! I have no personal problems with any ethnic group, but we can't walk around with blinders on in the interest of being politically correct.

I know I shouldn't go off on this subject, but this just goes to show why being so politically correct has caused so many problems in this country. We have TV showing our children that homosexuality should be viewed as being okay, and it's okay if they want to get married and adopt children, interracial marriages are okay (tell that to the offspring of one who didn't have a choice in the matter). Then there is my personal favorite that prayer in school is offensive and shouldn't be allowed as not to offend any one. Profiling is also unacceptable even when it's very clear in some cases we have been given a huge advantage in being able to recognize those who may represent a threat.

See, I told you that you didn't want to get me started on politics! Maybe now you all know why I have a hard time being politically correct on here. I'll be quiet now.