Sunday, July 21, 2013

Roll Your Own Passports, for Personal Use Only

...In a separate little-noticed section of the legislation, senators propose to rewrite the laws against counterfeiting passports and the materials used to obtain them. Those new laws would set a legal threshold of 10 phony passports before a fraudster could be prosecuted for buying, selling or using counterfeit materials used to produce such fake documents
...
In addition to language allowing counterfeiters to escape prosecution if their phony materials impacted fewer than ten illegal passports, other language in the Senate bill addresses those who actually produce the finished forgeries.

A 20 year jail sentence is a possibility, but only for a criminal who 'produces, issues, or transfers ... forges, counterfeits, alters, or falsely makes ... [or] secures, possesses, uses, receives, buys, sells, or distributes 3 or more [fake] passports.' Current federal law prescribes up to 25 years in federal prison for unauthorized persons who produce or issue 'any passport' - meaning a single one. But under the Senate proposal, 'three such instances are forbidden, meaning two would be permitted,' the Investor's Business Daily story concluded.



Other bugs "features" of the legislation include:

$270 million in "slush" funds for liberal groups, including "La Raza" (The Race) to help immigrants obtain benefits and allowing  illegal immigrants with two DUI convictions to continue on the path to legalization.

I'm shocked, shocked that Republicans would oppose such provisions.

No comments:

Post a Comment