Probe: U.S. Passports Still Vulnerable to Fraud

Posing as someone else and using fake birth certificates and driver's licenses still can obtain official U.S. passports.

For the second time in two years, government investigators exploited a gaping hole in the U.S. security system by deliberately using fraudulent material to apply for U.S. passports.

The investigation by the Government Accountability Office, detailed before a Senate committee on Thursday, underscores that despite security overhauls since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, the State Department's system for issuing passports remains vulnerable to fraud.

The problem not only highlights potential national security lapses but also shows how illegally obtained U.S. passports, one of the most sought-after travel documents in the world, could provide cover for drug dealers, murderers and others trying to avoid capture.

In the most recent investigation, GAO investigators applied for seven passports and received three of them, no eyebrows raised. In two other cases, the applications were approved but later denied when fraud was discovered. The State Department officials flagged problems on the bogus applications in two other cases, not issuing travel documents at all.

In a similar investigation in March 2009, government investigators used phony documents and the identities of a dead man and a 5-year-old boy to obtain U.S. passports. One investigator used the Social Security number of a man who died in 1965, a fake New York birth certificate and a fake Florida driver's license. He received a passport four days later. In the latest ruse conducted between January and June of this year, investigators used a fake Florida birth certificate, fake West Virginia driver's license and a recently issued Social Security number for a 62-year-old's application. Cards for Social Security, the government agency to help retired Americans, normally are obtained when Americans are quite young, because every worker must pay into the system through the identifying number on the personalized card.

The same picture submitted with that application also was used for multiple applications under different names.

Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the State Department, said human error and the sheer volume of documents that the department produces each year always will challenge the integrity of the passport application review process. The State Department issued 13 million passports in 2009.

In Sprague's prepared remarks for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday, she listed steps consular officers took once it was discovered they were dealing with fakery, including ordering a new schedule for improvements at passport offices and agencies across the United States so that more facial recognition technology is used.

Sprague said the improvements made after previous investigations are among the reasons officials were able to catch four out of the seven fake applications in the recent test.