Friday, March 28, 2008

I Quibble with Charlie Peters--Passport Flap

I've been reading Washington Monthly since it started, meaning I've been reading Charlie Peters, the founding editor. But today I disagree with him on the passport flap at State. Any long-time reader will not be surprised to see that I think the State passport system should send out an email anytime someone accesses a file. (If Abebooks can email me anytime some vendor offers a book I want, or Amazon do something similar, surely it's "technically feasible" (to use one of my favorite terms) to do so.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You of course are assuming that all people who apply for passports have email.

Bill Harshaw said...

Anonymous:

True enough. Ass-u-me. But it would be easy enough to tell people without an email address either to get one or to depend for protection of their files on the tender mercies of contract State department employees.

Or I could go further--why not have the government provide everyone with an email account?