The Foreign Service Journal, June 2010

J U N E 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 Going Digital As late as the 1990s, however, many consular sections still produced passports the way they were done a half- century before: with a gluepot and a typewriter. So the department’s 2001 announcement that overseas passport issuance was being phased out in favor of photo-digitized travel documents, produced only by passport centers in the United States, was received with widespread skepti- cism in consular sections abroad. However, by the time the program began in 2002, the 9/11 attacks had made Americans residing overseas much more willing to accept inconvenience for the sake of greater border security. By 2004, the centrally produced passports incorporated a biometric chip and met the most stringent international standards. Automation advances and, crucially, the interagency in- formation-sharing agreements made possible by the Bor- der Security Act of 2002 now make much more data available to consular officers almost instantly when they are reviewing a visa application. Likewise, the Customs F O C U S went with them. I gave them to Sarah, whose job it was to re- move the old pages from the big blue FAM binder, and re- place them with the updates. Toward closing time, I heard a wail of dismay. I rushed out of my office and found Sarah kneeling on the floor, weep- ing over a box of spilled index cards. The box was our sole way of tracking our pending IV cases. They’d been meticu- lously arranged by category and priority date, the family cases on blue cards and the employment-based on white. Now they were strewn across the tile floor. “Sarah, we can do this together,” I said soothingly, but I knew it would take us several hours to get the cards back in place. The fee collection reconciliation, like the passport rib- bon replacement and the controlled supplies inventory, would have to wait till the weekend. As we gathered up the cards, I heard a polite cough at the service counter. The Sav- ior was back, smiling benignly. He held his hand up in what looked like a gesture of blessing. He was holding an airline ticket and a little wad of traveler’s checks.