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The thing that surprised me when I recently renewed my password was reading some fine print that said you can't even legally leave the U.S without a passport.
by dougk16 14y ago
The thing that surprised me when I recently renewed my password was reading some fine print that said you can't even legally leave the U.S without a passport. Like I'm a prisoner here unless I have that piece of paper. I can understand requiring a passport before getting on an international flight or something, just as a practical matter, but the legal speak there somehow rubs me wrong. Unless there's more fine print to amend that fine print.
- bcoates 14y agoI think the fine print is that short of a small list of exceptions US nationals are legally entitled to a passport. It's all symbolic anyway, given the broad economic dependence on the ability to anonymously cross US borders.
- lurker14 14y agoIf you want to hop in a boat and motor away, no one will stop you. But if you leave this country, you probably want to go into another country (the world is about out of wilderness), and what are you going to do when you get there, without a passport?
- dougk16 14y agoBut the fine print seems to say that they would stop you in principle, that is, if they knew about it and had enough resources to actually care. I'm not saying that they would...it's the principle itself that rubs me the wrong way. As a practical matter, I actually prefer that they check my passport before an international flight, just as a last reminder. Certainly wouldn't want to fly all the way to Japan thinking that I had my passport, then, whoops!