Security of U.S. Passports Called Into Question

Why Are Key Passport Components Outsourced To a Country In Turmoil?

By Matthew Mosk, Matthew Cole, Brian Ross and John Solomon
Center For Public Integrity and ABC News

Posted By Newssleuth

The U.S. government agency that prints passports has for years failed toresolve persistent concerns about the security risks involved in outsourcing
production to foreign factories, a joint investigation by ABC News and the
Center for Public Integrity <http://www.publicin tegrity.org/> has found.

“On a number of levels this is extremely troubling,” said Clark Kent Ervin,
a former inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security.
“Something like that ought to be produced only in the United States, under
only the most rigorous security standards.” A report on the outsourcing of
U.S. passports to high-risk countries was seen on World News with Diane
Sawyer.

Despite repeated assurances they would move production to the U.S., a key
government contractor has continued to assemble an electronic component of
the nation’s new, more sophisticated passport in Thailand.

The factory is near the same Bangkok suburb where a notorious terrorist
extremist was captured in 2003. There have been bursts of violence in the
industrial city, Ayutthaya, as recently as last month.

Both the inspector general at the Government Printing Office and the
agency’s own security chief have warned specifically against producing the
computer chip assembly in the Thai facility. One internal report obtained by
ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity warned of a “potential long
term risk to the [U.S. government’s] interests.”

The top official at the GPO, Robert Tapella, declined requests to be
interviewed on the subject. ABC News caught up with Tapella at an industry
conference in Baltimore to ask him why repeated warnings about the security
of the passport supply chain have not been resolved.

Tapella said government contractors were in the process of moving work on
the passport out of Thailand and into a newer facility in Minnesota. “I
believe the Government Printing Office along with the Department of State,
are doing everything necessary to maintain and secure the passport supply
chain,” he said.

The Thai factory was one of several concerns raised in an inspector
general’s audit earlier this year that looked into the way the GPO is
producing the new e-passport a passport that is supposed to be
impenetrable to counterfeiters because it stores information on an embedded
computer chip that is tucked into the cover.

Experts agree that passport production is a critical homeland security
concern, given that possession of an American passport can help a traveler
bypass some of the stringent reviews conducted of those entering the U.S.
from abroad. Ervin described the document as an EZ-pass into the United
States, something officials say terrorists know all too well.

GPO’s inspector general has warned that the agency lacks even the most basic
security plan for ensuring that blank e-Passports — and their highly sought
technologies aren’t stolen by terrorists, foreign spies, counterfeiters
and other bad actors as they wind through an unwieldy manufacturing process
that spans the globe and includes 60 different suppliers.

This disturbs Rep. John D. Dingell, D.-Mich., who wrote letters to the
agency two years ago raising questions about passport production.

“Regrettably, since then, our fears have been realized because the inspector
general and other people in charge of security at the government printing
office have pointed out that the security is not there,” Dingell told ABC
News. “There is no real assurance that the e-passports are safe or secure or
are not in danger of being counterfeited or corrupted or used for some
nefarious purposes by terrorists or others.”

Dingell said the agency needs to make good on years of promises to move
production of the chip assembly into the U.S.

Gary Somerset, a spokesman for the agency, said the process of moving
production into the U.S. is well along. He estimated that only about one in
five chip assemblies are still put together in the Thai factory, and said
the agency has pledged to move out of Thailand completely by the end of
July.

At the Ayutthaya plant, Thai workers create assemble inlays that embed
wireless transmitters and sophisticated computer chips that store personal
information used by customs and border guards to verify the identities of
those who enter the United States. The inlays are shipped back to Germany
and eventually the full e-Passport is assembled in the U.S.. There remains
disagreement about whether the theft of blank computer chips assemblies
could enable someone to clone an e-passport.

Ari Juels, the chief scientist at RSA Laboratories, a Cambridge-based
security research group, said the risk is that someone could take
information from a stolen passport and imprint it on a blank chip, which
could then be embedded into a forgery. “Getting a hold of an inlay might
help someone to create an authentic looking copy,” he said.

Somerset said that has never happened, to his knowledge. “There has been no
security breach in the electronic passport supply chain,” he said.

Officials at the Dutch contractor that owns the chip assembly plant in
Thailand, Smartrac, also told ABC News that it has tightened security there
since the first concerns were raised inside GPO. A company spokeswoman also
said employees “undergo a background check to assure that highest security
standards are not only met in terms of production environment but also in
terms of personnel.”

But none of that comforts Robert Sheridan, a retired customs agent and
former GPO investigator who has followed the security issue for years.

“A passport is the keys to entry into the kingdom,” Sheridan said. “Somebody
better wake up.”