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How Passports Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:05
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Noel. This the Autumn
0:20
Speaker 1: of Noel continues. Yeah, Autumn of Noel. That's a good
0:24
Speaker 1: album title. I get royalties from it if anyone uses it.
0:29
Speaker 1: I think that we should entitle this, uh passports Colin
0:35
Speaker 1: go to sleep now, man. I know this is one
0:40
Speaker 1: of the ones that gets chalked up in the calm
0:42
Speaker 1: of well, we've gotta explain everything. Yeah, it's okay. Oh yeah,
0:47
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk down before we start. But
0:50
Speaker 1: it's not scentilating. We're supposed to be enticing people with
0:53
Speaker 1: actually kind of chasing them off. Now, I think this
0:55
Speaker 1: files under like informational, helpful, informational podcast. There you go.
1:00
Speaker 1: We're not gonna blow your mind with like the coolest
1:03
Speaker 1: stories on Earth, but you're going to know how to
1:05
Speaker 1: get a passport. Yes you are, especially if you live
1:08
Speaker 1: in the United States. Yeah. Um, all right, Well let's
1:11
Speaker 1: start with the name Chuck. You know, there's a there's
1:13
Speaker 1: a a great debate over what passport the word comes from. Yeah,
1:19
Speaker 1: it depends on whether you are British or a Francophile.
1:24
Speaker 1: In British it means quite literally what it sounds like.
1:26
Speaker 1: It's passed. It allows passage through a port, like whereas
1:30
Speaker 1: ship docks. You come in, you say, here are my papers,
1:33
Speaker 1: this is a passport. Let me pass if your French
1:37
Speaker 1: port p r t e means like gate or door,
1:41
Speaker 1: so you would be allowed passage through like the gates
1:43
Speaker 1: of a city. Never never been settled. No one knows
1:47
Speaker 1: exactly which one is correct, but it's probably one of
1:50
Speaker 1: those two that the word comes from. It's never been
1:51
Speaker 1: settled because they could arguing about it. Yeah, there's like
1:54
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who um, but it does underscore the
1:58
Speaker 1: fact that passports are quite old. Actually, yeah, you dug
2:02
Speaker 1: up this article from the Guardian, the Brief History of
2:05
Speaker 1: the Passport, which um, I thought it was kind of interesting.
2:07
Speaker 1: The uh back even in Biblical times they had things
2:12
Speaker 1: that were like passports that obviously didn't call them passports,
2:15
Speaker 1: but in the Book of Nea Maiah very underrated it. Yeah,
2:23
Speaker 1: of course I used to have them all memorized. You
2:25
Speaker 1: had the Book of Nea Maiah. No, no, no, all
2:27
Speaker 1: the books of the Bible memorized. I can still say
2:30
Speaker 1: them up through a certain point nice, and then I
2:34
Speaker 1: just forget and then start shaking. Is neo Maiah involved
2:38
Speaker 1: included in what you can remember? Uh? No, I think
2:42
Speaker 1: I go through like judges. Yeah, and then I forget
2:45
Speaker 1: to do alphabetically. No, I just didn't order I could
2:48
Speaker 1: start rattling him and off that. I don't think we
2:50
Speaker 1: need to go there. Uh and Nea Maia though there
2:54
Speaker 1: was a profit working as the Royal cup bearer and
2:58
Speaker 1: basically we had to travel to Judah and said I
3:01
Speaker 1: need some help king so I don't get uh, I
3:04
Speaker 1: guess drawn and quartered, which they probably didn't even do
3:07
Speaker 1: back then. Um, so can I get safe passage? And
3:10
Speaker 1: that was sort of the earliest idea of a government
3:14
Speaker 1: sort of agency saying, please allow this person to pass
3:18
Speaker 1: into your town. No molest star, no molestar, don't touch
3:22
Speaker 1: this guy. Just leave him alone. He's got my protection.
3:25
Speaker 1: I will bring the full force of my kingdom down
3:27
Speaker 1: upon you. That's right. This actually ties in with our
3:30
Speaker 1: episode on Diplomatic Community that they it's basically the same thing. Um.
3:35
Speaker 1: But so yeah, this idea of of getting some sort
3:38
Speaker 1: of protection to travel abroad. Um, it's pretty old in
3:43
Speaker 1: early medieval and then up until late medieval Europe, there
3:47
Speaker 1: is this idea that people should have a freedom of movement. Right,
3:52
Speaker 1: King John, the same guy from the Magna Carta he
3:55
Speaker 1: he Um, was the first to at least in Europe,
3:58
Speaker 1: to enshrine the idea of freedom of movement. That you
4:01
Speaker 1: should be able to leave your homeland, go somewhere for
4:05
Speaker 1: business or pleasure or whatever, and then come back to
4:08
Speaker 1: your homeland without any real problems. It shouldn't be a
4:11
Speaker 1: big deal. You shouldn't be trapped in your homeline. You
4:13
Speaker 1: shouldn't be excluded from your homeline. You should be able
4:15
Speaker 1: to move back and forth. Yeah, And since then it's
4:18
Speaker 1: been considered something of a universal human rights, this freedom
4:21
Speaker 1: of movement. You think so, and in well, in fact,
4:24
Speaker 1: in the u N's Universal Declaration of Human Rights that
4:27
Speaker 1: came after World War Two, it's enshrined in there as well.
4:31
Speaker 1: Freedom of movement. Pretty neat, It is pretty neat. But
4:34
Speaker 1: part of that is this idea that you have some
4:37
Speaker 1: sort of papers that says this is a citizen of
4:40
Speaker 1: our country. Please give them, uh, you know, please treat
4:44
Speaker 1: them well. And in fact, well I don't know about that,
4:47
Speaker 1: but at least I'm to come and go right there. Uh.
4:49
Speaker 1: In fact, in our own US passports still something a
4:52
Speaker 1: lot of people probably don't even read. There there in
4:55
Speaker 1: lies the important statement that says that still, like you know,
4:59
Speaker 1: the please allow the citizen. I don't think it says please,
5:02
Speaker 1: it says normal les star star. It's very important. Uh
5:06
Speaker 1: and jolly old England. I thought this was pretty interesting.
5:10
Speaker 1: From the seventeen nine on the Office of the Secretary
5:14
Speaker 1: of State took over passport issuance and um, the Home
5:18
Speaker 1: Office right it just says the Office of Secretary of State.
5:22
Speaker 1: I think that's the Home Office, okay. Uh, and they
5:25
Speaker 1: have every passport since sevent still in record. Yeah. It's
5:29
Speaker 1: pretty awesome yeah, or frightening where you're coming from. I
5:32
Speaker 1: saw another thing about British passports. Um, the photos have
5:35
Speaker 1: evolved over time. Like it used to be, they were
5:38
Speaker 1: just like kid, just make sure you're in the photo.
5:41
Speaker 1: Like s Arthur Conan Doyle has a photo of himself
5:44
Speaker 1: with his family and their dog on his old passport. Yeah. Um,
5:50
Speaker 1: over time those we'll see. There's definitely strict regulations about
5:54
Speaker 1: what you can and can't use for your passport photo. Yeah.
5:57
Speaker 1: And also in England, they used to um, British passports
6:00
Speaker 1: had descriptions as well, so a lot of people didn't
6:05
Speaker 1: like this. That would have you know, things like you know,
6:08
Speaker 1: big nose, prominent, eight head, b D eyes, b D eyes.
6:13
Speaker 1: And eventually they're like, maybe we should just let the
6:15
Speaker 1: photo do the talking, right. Um. So about the eighteen sixties,
6:21
Speaker 1: Europe said, you know what, to heck with this, this
6:23
Speaker 1: is a pain. We don't want to check everybody's papers.
6:26
Speaker 1: Let's just do away with passports. And they were fine
6:29
Speaker 1: with that. America went the exact opposite way. Um. Up
6:33
Speaker 1: until about the Civil War, it was pretty easy to
6:36
Speaker 1: come and go into the United States without any kind
6:38
Speaker 1: of papers whatsoever. Um. But then apparently because they were
6:42
Speaker 1: worried about um, well, they wanted to keep track of
6:45
Speaker 1: who was coming into America and who was going. And
6:49
Speaker 1: that's a really good way to do it, is right,
6:52
Speaker 1: is to require documentation for that kind of international travel.
6:56
Speaker 1: So America started its passport requirements around then. And then finally,
7:01
Speaker 1: when World War One came, everybody started using passports. Yeah.
7:05
Speaker 1: That seemed like the point where the whole world said,
7:07
Speaker 1: you know, let's really keep track of this. Yeah, and
7:10
Speaker 1: they used to be pretty cumbersome. I think that the
7:12
Speaker 1: United States passport was like an eleven by eighteen inch document. Yeah,
7:17
Speaker 1: that's a biggie. Yeah. This was taken from a book
7:21
Speaker 1: that you found called The Passport in America by Craig Robertson.
7:25
Speaker 1: And this dude really did his homework. And um, there
7:29
Speaker 1: was even a direct quote from somebody in the nineteenth
7:31
Speaker 1: century that said, no pocket of any sex would tolerate them. No,
7:35
Speaker 1: they were just too big. Like that was the yelp
7:37
Speaker 1: review passport. I gave for this in my pocket. Nobody could. Um.
7:43
Speaker 1: So the came around in the United States dropped it
7:47
Speaker 1: down to about the standard three by five, and that
7:49
Speaker 1: became the trend around the world. Um, and uh, there's
7:54
Speaker 1: your Everything interesting about passports is just coming on. That's
7:59
Speaker 1: not true that England called There's Old Blue for a
8:02
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah. Apparently it was very beloved. And then
8:04
Speaker 1: they moved over to Burgundy and I was like, okay,
8:07
Speaker 1: old Burgundy. I guess it's fine. Um, all right, should
8:12
Speaker 1: we take a break here? Why not? All right, let's
8:15
Speaker 1: take a break and we'll get back to the scintillating
8:17
Speaker 1: details of passports. All right, we're back with passports. Welcome
8:43
Speaker 1: back to passport talk. We should do a whole series
8:46
Speaker 1: of it. Uh So in the US, if you are issued, um,
8:51
Speaker 1: you're issued a passport from a number of places. Uh
8:55
Speaker 1: the state department. Well, the state department issues them. Well, yeah,
9:00
Speaker 1: they get routed through there for sure. Right, you can
9:02
Speaker 1: apply in different places. So there's twenty seven passport agencies
9:06
Speaker 1: now in all fifty states. But you don't have to
9:09
Speaker 1: go to a passport agency. No, you don't unless really quickly.
9:16
Speaker 1: That's only about a week quicker. It depends though, we'll
9:19
Speaker 1: talk about we'll get to that. But yeah, most people
9:22
Speaker 1: just go to the post office. You can go the
9:24
Speaker 1: post office, you can go to uh a court. Um,
9:28
Speaker 1: there are other authorities around. If you look up that
9:31
Speaker 1: you can apply for your passport. You can apply at home,
9:34
Speaker 1: like print it out yourself. What's the form d A
9:37
Speaker 1: stroke eleven? I think that is that's the one. So yeah,
9:42
Speaker 1: you and you can print it out at home. But
9:44
Speaker 1: the thing is that you're gonna need to if it's
9:46
Speaker 1: we should say, there's really two big circumstances that will
9:50
Speaker 1: change all this stuff. If this is your first passport,
9:54
Speaker 1: you can print it at home all day long. You're
9:56
Speaker 1: gonna have to go somewhere to show up in person
9:58
Speaker 1: to apply. They want to see you. They wanted to
10:01
Speaker 1: verify you are who you are and smell. Yes, they
10:04
Speaker 1: wanted to take in your your scent um. And uh
10:09
Speaker 1: so your first passport you have to jump through a
10:11
Speaker 1: little bit of hoops. We should say, however, this is
10:14
Speaker 1: not difficult stuff. No, no, and there's really no excuse
10:17
Speaker 1: whatsoever for you to not have a passport. No, it's
10:21
Speaker 1: I think when you reach a certain age. Uh, it's
10:24
Speaker 1: good to have just in case. It's good for ten
10:29
Speaker 1: years if you're over eighteen and I think sixteen, Yeah, yeah,
10:35
Speaker 1: I think so. All right, Well, ten years is a
10:37
Speaker 1: long time, and we'll get into trying to get it
10:40
Speaker 1: one quick like. But you can save yourself a lot
10:43
Speaker 1: of money and a lot of trouble and a lot
10:45
Speaker 1: of stress if you just say, I'll go ahead and
10:48
Speaker 1: get my passport in case I ever need to leave
10:50
Speaker 1: the country in a hurry for fun. Uh. And cost
10:54
Speaker 1: now is um for first time first timers. It's a
10:59
Speaker 1: hundred and five dollars for an adult, hundred and five
11:03
Speaker 1: for child. Uh. If you renew your passport, which is
11:08
Speaker 1: a little bit of a misnumber because they say you
11:11
Speaker 1: can't renew a passport. You can't renew it, and that
11:14
Speaker 1: you keep your same passport you get a new one.
11:17
Speaker 1: But if you have a previous passport, you can't get
11:20
Speaker 1: it renewed. It'll just be a new one and it's cheaper, right. Yeah.
11:24
Speaker 1: So the first time you go to apply for a passport,
11:26
Speaker 1: you're going to fill out the form what is it,
11:28
Speaker 1: the DS eleven D stroke eleven, and you're going to
11:31
Speaker 1: take it down there with some proof of identity um,
11:36
Speaker 1: and you are going to sign it in front of
11:38
Speaker 1: the person at the post office or the clerk of
11:41
Speaker 1: court wherever. You don't sign it at home, no, no, um.
11:44
Speaker 1: And then they're going to take all of your stuff
11:47
Speaker 1: and then you will get a passport of the mail.
11:49
Speaker 1: After that, you can fill out a totally different form,
11:52
Speaker 1: pay less money and just mail your old passport in
11:54
Speaker 1: and they'll send you a new one, yeah, along with
11:57
Speaker 1: the old one, which is kind of neat if you
11:59
Speaker 1: like to keep sake. Yeah, what I can say is
12:02
Speaker 1: don't tear pages out of your passport as keepsakes, because uh,
12:07
Speaker 1: I know someone who ended up on a watch list
12:09
Speaker 1: by doing that. Wow. Family member actually really, yeah, just
12:15
Speaker 1: want They're like, hey, this was a special trip. Let
12:17
Speaker 1: me keep this page big no no, yeah, apparently you
12:20
Speaker 1: could be prosecuted mutilating your passport yescause how do they
12:24
Speaker 1: put it? So don't worry. They'll mail you back your
12:27
Speaker 1: old passport if you just want to hang on. And
12:28
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's changed. When I was
12:30
Speaker 1: doing my traveling abroad in the nineties, I didn't even
12:35
Speaker 1: get stamped in every country, so it's not like I
12:37
Speaker 1: had a passport full of amazing memorable stamps. I think
12:40
Speaker 1: about half the country has even bothered stamping it. They
12:43
Speaker 1: may be more strict on it now. I don't know. Uh,
12:46
Speaker 1: you always get stamps, I mean here there most of
12:49
Speaker 1: the time, okay, but not always. Yeah, I've never figured
12:52
Speaker 1: out what the deal is. Maybe they would or wouldn't
12:55
Speaker 1: stamp it seems like it literally comes down to like,
12:57
Speaker 1: do I feel like doing this with my hand? Yeah,
12:59
Speaker 1: that's seeing pressure I have as well. But I mean
13:02
Speaker 1: that seems like a serious lack of yeah, you know,
13:06
Speaker 1: uh standardization maybe sure, yeah, I guess, Yeah, there's there's
13:12
Speaker 1: something wrong with that, I think. So if you want
13:15
Speaker 1: to go abroad, um, you should do this a few
13:18
Speaker 1: months ahead of time, just to take all the stress
13:20
Speaker 1: out of it. You're gonna get your passport. It usually
13:24
Speaker 1: takes a couple of weeks, but you don't want to
13:26
Speaker 1: chance anything. No, no, UM, just normally just using all
13:30
Speaker 1: the normal channels, going to the post office, not paying
13:33
Speaker 1: for any kind of expedite service. The State Department estimates
13:36
Speaker 1: you should get your passport from the time of your
13:39
Speaker 1: application about four to six weeks. Yeah, but it never
13:42
Speaker 1: takes that long. But again it shouldn't, but it could.
13:45
Speaker 1: It could. That's the worst case scenario, which is what
13:48
Speaker 1: they tell you. So Uncle Chuck will tell you it'll
13:51
Speaker 1: take a couple of weeks. But again, don't risk that. No.
13:54
Speaker 1: And there's there's actually a fairly recent history UM shows
13:58
Speaker 1: us that you you really shouldn't risk it. UM. Back
14:01
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, something called the Western Hemisphere Travel
14:05
Speaker 1: Initiative went into effect. And it used to be that
14:08
Speaker 1: you could get to Canada and Mexico and parts of
14:11
Speaker 1: the Caribbean with just your birth certificate and maybe a
14:15
Speaker 1: driver's license. UM. That was totally fine. That kind of
14:18
Speaker 1: traveled through North America. UH. In two thousand seven, they
14:24
Speaker 1: said no, if you're traveling by air, you have to
14:27
Speaker 1: have a passport, even if you're coming from Mexico or
14:29
Speaker 1: Canada into the US. If you're traveling by lander by sea,
14:33
Speaker 1: you need to at least have a passport card, which
14:35
Speaker 1: they created which is about half price. This caused a
14:39
Speaker 1: huge run on passports in two thousand seven, and the
14:43
Speaker 1: backlog suddenly went to like a fifteen week wait, which
14:47
Speaker 1: was a real headache for a lot of people who
14:49
Speaker 1: had waited assuming it was going to be four to
14:51
Speaker 1: six weeks, and all of a sudden it was fifteen weeks. Well,
14:55
Speaker 1: if your travel was in that time, you're in big
14:57
Speaker 1: trouble right um, and oh, the State Department is warning
15:02
Speaker 1: we're about to get to the ten year anniversary of that.
15:05
Speaker 1: So if your passports coming up for renewal, you may
15:09
Speaker 1: want to do it sooner than later because that same
15:11
Speaker 1: backlog is going to come again as people have to
15:14
Speaker 1: renew after ten years. So if you were a chump before,
15:17
Speaker 1: don't be a chump twice. Well they'll be prepared to
15:20
Speaker 1: be a chump again, almost, I guess, or else run
15:22
Speaker 1: out and do it right now. So the little card
15:25
Speaker 1: is for first timer's is fifty five for adults and
15:28
Speaker 1: forty for kids. Uh, which is a lot cheaper and
15:32
Speaker 1: it fits in your wallet. And I guess if you
15:34
Speaker 1: are in the U S, you're like, I like to
15:35
Speaker 1: go to the Caribbean every now and then or Mexico
15:38
Speaker 1: and that's about it. Um. Yeah, but that's just if
15:40
Speaker 1: you're going by land or sea. Yeah, if you're flying,
15:44
Speaker 1: you have to have a passport every single time. You
15:46
Speaker 1: should say that at least two more times. If you're flying,
15:49
Speaker 1: you have to have a passport. All right, that's three.
15:51
Speaker 1: I think I think we got it across. Uh. But
15:54
Speaker 1: like I said, no, you know yourself. You know what
15:56
Speaker 1: kind of travel you'd like to do. If you just
15:58
Speaker 1: say I like to go on the occasion cruise, Okay,
16:01
Speaker 1: see that gets your little card. Let's see travel that's covered.
16:07
Speaker 1: I don't want anybody getting the customs being like but
16:10
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck said, and that's ruining their vacation. No,
16:13
Speaker 1: I think we've we've really hammered that. I'm I'm okay,
16:16
Speaker 1: I'm fine. No, yourself, know your travel style, get the card.
16:21
Speaker 1: If the card is good for you, get old Blue.
16:24
Speaker 1: Well we don't call it old blue. The British caller
16:28
Speaker 1: is old blue though everything it was it burgundy, now
16:32
Speaker 1: old Burgundy. Um, alright, so we're traveling abroad. By the way,
16:39
Speaker 1: you have a baby, your baby's gotta have a passport. Yeah,
16:41
Speaker 1: and I thought there would be some like exemption, but no,
16:44
Speaker 1: you gotta get your baby photographed. Any live human has
16:48
Speaker 1: to have a passport, at least in the United States,
16:50
Speaker 1: but increasingly across the world, like passport laws are are
16:55
Speaker 1: becoming more and more standardized, you know. All right, So
16:59
Speaker 1: we talked about a lying in person OBVI, if it's
17:01
Speaker 1: your first passport, you have to do that. We already
17:03
Speaker 1: said that. Um, if you lost or had your passport stolen,
17:09
Speaker 1: you have to go again in person. If your passport
17:12
Speaker 1: is expired, was issued more than fifteen years ago, you
17:15
Speaker 1: gotta go again. And by the way, the reason they
17:19
Speaker 1: I think when you're a kid you have it only
17:21
Speaker 1: last so long because you change the way you look more,
17:24
Speaker 1: which makes sense. Yeah, they have no idea what you're
17:26
Speaker 1: going to grow up to look like. You could look
17:28
Speaker 1: like a freak and they don't know. So was it
17:31
Speaker 1: every five years if you're under age sixteen five years?
17:35
Speaker 1: And hey, if you're getting multiple passports before the age
17:38
Speaker 1: of fifteen, then lucky you kid. Uh. If your passport
17:43
Speaker 1: expired was issued when you were under sixteen, you gotta
17:45
Speaker 1: go in person. Or if your name has changed, then
17:48
Speaker 1: you gotta go in person. Uh. If your name has
17:50
Speaker 1: changed and you don't have any kind of legal document
17:53
Speaker 1: showing change, you can send that in right. Yeah, you
17:56
Speaker 1: can totally. Um, you can change your name just by
17:59
Speaker 1: through the mail. Actually, as long as you have a
18:01
Speaker 1: certified supporting document. Uh. Here's what I thought was interesting.
18:05
Speaker 1: To prove your identity. Um, if you don't have a
18:09
Speaker 1: birth a certified birth certificate, you can actually still get
18:13
Speaker 1: a passport through a letter of no record basically a
18:15
Speaker 1: letter saying this dude doesn't have a certified birth certificate
18:19
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. It starts out you're not gonna believe this,
18:24
Speaker 1: but get this, this guy doesn't have a birth certificate.
18:28
Speaker 1: I like that they take you know, there's an allowance
18:30
Speaker 1: for that though, you know, yeah, I think it's necessary. Um.
18:34
Speaker 1: And this is this is different from like a hospital
18:37
Speaker 1: birth certificate. The hospital actually reports the birth and then
18:40
Speaker 1: the the birth is recorded with the city or the county.
18:44
Speaker 1: That's the birth certificate you want. But if your city
18:47
Speaker 1: or county lost it or whatever and can't find it,
18:49
Speaker 1: then they should issue you a letter of no documentation.
18:53
Speaker 1: That in and of itself isn't going to be enough
18:55
Speaker 1: for you to necessarily get a passport. Um, you also
18:59
Speaker 1: want to find other stuff that supports the fact that
19:01
Speaker 1: you were in fact born. This is a great list.
19:03
Speaker 1: You know, a census record. Where are you going to
19:06
Speaker 1: find that? A certificate of circumcision. Yeah, that's one who's
19:11
Speaker 1: gonna lie about that? Yeah, show them the certificate and
19:13
Speaker 1: then I guess if they need further proof, you could
19:16
Speaker 1: the room they're like, please please step around and drop
19:19
Speaker 1: your pants or no, they wouldn't do that. Baptismal certificate. Now,
19:24
Speaker 1: if they do do that, you you should get a
19:27
Speaker 1: free passport and maybe even like like they give you
19:31
Speaker 1: a state, the state you're in, you just automatically own
19:34
Speaker 1: it for that, uh, doctor's record of postnatal care. Um.
19:39
Speaker 1: A family Bible record. I've never heard of that. I
19:41
Speaker 1: don't I didn't even underline that. You didn't know. That
19:44
Speaker 1: seems illegitimate, Like a family like you could write anything
19:47
Speaker 1: in a family Bible? Is that what that means? I think?
19:50
Speaker 1: So that's some archaics baptismal certificates another one. Uh, then
19:57
Speaker 1: you want to bring in some proof of I D,
19:58
Speaker 1: like if your driver's license to her military I D,
20:01
Speaker 1: government I D. Basically, you want to load up on
20:03
Speaker 1: anything you can, including a signature I D uh and
20:08
Speaker 1: say please let me leave the country and come back right.
20:11
Speaker 1: And there's actually a form called the D S slash
20:14
Speaker 1: ten a, and it is a form that you can
20:17
Speaker 1: have a blood relative who's older than It's my favorite thing,
20:21
Speaker 1: um David saying like, yes, this person was born, I
20:25
Speaker 1: remember when he or she was born because they're my
20:28
Speaker 1: favorite niece or nephew. And um, they are who they
20:32
Speaker 1: say they are. They don't even need to be related.
20:34
Speaker 1: I really thought it was a blood relative. Now you
20:36
Speaker 1: just have to know you for two years. Oh that's
20:38
Speaker 1: a different form. That's the form DS slash seventy one. Oh,
20:41
Speaker 1: I thought, what's yours again? DS slash ten a. Let's
20:45
Speaker 1: get it, let's get it straight. But they both do
20:47
Speaker 1: the same thing. One is a blood relative, and I
20:50
Speaker 1: think it holds more weight. The D S seventy one
20:54
Speaker 1: is where somebody who's knowing you for two years says
20:57
Speaker 1: I vouched for this person. How long did you know Rob,
20:59
Speaker 1: they've been and yeah, I could have vouched for I guess,
21:02
Speaker 1: could he vouch for you? I guess yeah. I'm sure
21:04
Speaker 1: we knew each other for longer than two years. But
21:07
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. That's I think that's like
21:09
Speaker 1: the last resort. It's like this person has been posing
21:12
Speaker 1: as this person for at least two years? Is what
21:15
Speaker 1: the form ds slash seventy. He's my neighbor, h showed up.
21:21
Speaker 1: I know that the older couple who lived in the
21:24
Speaker 1: house just suddenly didn't live there anymore, and this man did.
21:27
Speaker 1: He doesn't have an accent. That's weird, all right. So
21:32
Speaker 1: let's talk about the worst case scenario, which we were
21:34
Speaker 1: talking about, which is, oh, no, I have to get
21:37
Speaker 1: to uh Bruges in Belgium tomorrow. Okay, what do you do? Well,
21:46
Speaker 1: it depends on why you have to get there. If
21:48
Speaker 1: you have a family member who just fell down and
21:50
Speaker 1: hit their head, and is that the death doorstep you
21:54
Speaker 1: have what the state department considers to be a life
21:56
Speaker 1: and death circumstance. Um, you and go there and say, hey,
22:01
Speaker 1: this hospital and Bruges just sent me the facts. That's
22:05
Speaker 1: my is my my brothers medical records and I have
22:11
Speaker 1: to go and they will work with you. Um, if
22:14
Speaker 1: you have. If you say, hey, I just thought of
22:17
Speaker 1: going out of town at the last minute. Um, I
22:21
Speaker 1: booked a trip for tomorrow for fun because I'm an idiot, right,
22:25
Speaker 1: so I need a passport. They'll actually work with you. Um.
22:30
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be fun. No, and and you're gonna
22:32
Speaker 1: have to jump through hoops. But you can conceivably get
22:36
Speaker 1: a passport within twenty four hours or less, sometimes the
22:39
Speaker 1: same day. Yeah. You can go to a private agency
22:42
Speaker 1: and pay anywhere from hundred and eighty to like three
22:46
Speaker 1: hundred dollars to get a same day passport. Yes, that's real, right,
22:51
Speaker 1: it's not like you know the back alley. They should
22:54
Speaker 1: do it. Um. There's I saw one here in Atlanta.
22:57
Speaker 1: They have an office, um where for two nine five
23:00
Speaker 1: dollars you can get a a passport in eight hours
23:03
Speaker 1: that they'll go get you one. Um. But that is
23:07
Speaker 1: again if you have If you say just need it
23:09
Speaker 1: to be renewed or need pages added to it or
23:12
Speaker 1: something like that, if you have to do it and
23:14
Speaker 1: it's your first passport, you're gonna have to do it
23:16
Speaker 1: yourself either way. And actually you can save yourself those
23:19
Speaker 1: fees by simply making an appointment and going to one
23:22
Speaker 1: of the regional offices if you're lucky enough to live
23:25
Speaker 1: in that city, and then you should be able to
23:27
Speaker 1: get it the same day, as long as you can
23:29
Speaker 1: prove that you need it within that time and if
23:31
Speaker 1: you pay the sixty rush fee. Yeah, because if you
23:35
Speaker 1: hire this private service, you're gonna have to pay all
23:38
Speaker 1: the normal passport fees, including the rush fee plus there um.
23:43
Speaker 1: This this private services fees of like three dollars on
23:47
Speaker 1: top of all of the other feed you'll have to pay. Um.
23:51
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break in Let's talk about
23:53
Speaker 1: the all important passport photo after this. All right, Josh,
24:22
Speaker 1: this is kind of fun too, because passport photos have
24:27
Speaker 1: very specific requirements and you would think they would just
24:30
Speaker 1: be common sense, but you know, some dummy might take
24:34
Speaker 1: their own passport photo. What you can do with like
24:37
Speaker 1: Beats headphones and a Braves hat and sunglasses on your
24:41
Speaker 1: dumb dumb Especially if you mail that off and expect
24:45
Speaker 1: your passport to come back, you're going to get a
24:47
Speaker 1: letter of denial. Now. Instead, you have to be facing front.
24:50
Speaker 1: You want it to be mostly a headshot. It has
24:53
Speaker 1: to be a two inch by two inch photo. Um,
24:56
Speaker 1: and you need a duplicate of it, and your head
24:58
Speaker 1: has to take up one one in three eight inches
25:02
Speaker 1: of this photo from the bottom of the gins to
25:04
Speaker 1: the top of the head exactly. You don't want anything
25:06
Speaker 1: covering your hair or your hair line. You don't want
25:09
Speaker 1: to be wearing sunglasses. But if say, like you wear
25:12
Speaker 1: a wig, or you wear glasses, or you wear something
25:16
Speaker 1: that that is a separate feature on your face, but
25:19
Speaker 1: you know you normally wear that, you would want to
25:21
Speaker 1: wear that in the photo. Yeah. They want it to
25:23
Speaker 1: look as much like you look every day. And that
25:26
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I wear my last chance garage at No.
25:28
Speaker 1: You couldn't. You know, you would get to nine. But
25:31
Speaker 1: I could say I wear this almost every day and
25:33
Speaker 1: they'd say sorry, and they say, you're a grown man.
25:36
Speaker 1: For God's sake, while you're wearing a baseball cap. It's
25:39
Speaker 1: got to be in color these days. I didn't used
25:42
Speaker 1: to have to be. And they prefer a neutral expression,
25:45
Speaker 1: although you are allowed a slight smile, a little maybe
25:49
Speaker 1: a Mona Lisa smile if you're going, like too to
25:54
Speaker 1: Paris for the Tour de France Finale. So where it
25:57
Speaker 1: is We'll say, Frances, all right, Uh, you might be
26:01
Speaker 1: a little excited and smile a little bit, but keep
26:04
Speaker 1: it to yourself, keep it tamped down forever. Um, or
26:10
Speaker 1: you can if you don't want to do it yourself. Uh.
26:12
Speaker 1: You know you're supposed to have a white background or
26:14
Speaker 1: tan background. You gotta go to Kinko's or someplace, or
26:17
Speaker 1: just google passport photos. And there's plenty of places that
26:20
Speaker 1: aren't the photo booth. Yeah, which again, technically, as long
26:25
Speaker 1: as it fits the criteria, they don't care if you
26:27
Speaker 1: got it done in a photo booth as long as
26:30
Speaker 1: you're following all of the standards. But it is a
26:32
Speaker 1: lot easier for you to go to just the drug
26:34
Speaker 1: store and say I need passport photos. The person taking
26:37
Speaker 1: your picture should know what to do. We've already talked
26:40
Speaker 1: about renewal, but that is DS stroke A T two
26:44
Speaker 1: if you want to download that sucker. Uh. And again
26:47
Speaker 1: it is cheaper to renew and as long as you
26:49
Speaker 1: fit the other requirements, you can just send it, send
26:52
Speaker 1: it right in and get it replaced, which is great, right. So, um,
26:56
Speaker 1: if you were to tear open your pastor As of
27:01
Speaker 1: two thousand six, in the United States, you would, Well,
27:04
Speaker 1: first of all, you be arrested probably, which is nuts.
27:08
Speaker 1: But if you go and read page six, it says
27:11
Speaker 1: that it's property of the U. S. Government. You don't
27:14
Speaker 1: own it, no, and that if a US authority requests
27:18
Speaker 1: that you surrender it, you have to surrender it. That's right,
27:21
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a second, because it's kind
27:23
Speaker 1: of a big deal. But if you tore it up
27:25
Speaker 1: and you would find um an r F I D
27:27
Speaker 1: chip that makes your passport's considered an E passport and
27:32
Speaker 1: that has all sorts of information as a duplicate of
27:35
Speaker 1: your photo has biometric information about you, and uh, it
27:39
Speaker 1: makes it a lot harder to travel under a fake
27:43
Speaker 1: passport or forge a passport than it used to be.
27:46
Speaker 1: And that's radio frequency identifications what that stands for. And
27:50
Speaker 1: the U S gets a lot of credit for the
27:51
Speaker 1: E passport, but it actually was introduced in Malaysia earlier.
27:55
Speaker 1: And another big feature that makes it difficult to forge, well,
28:00
Speaker 1: a lot of different features like special inks and different
28:03
Speaker 1: types of illustrations and threatening and stuff like that, that
28:07
Speaker 1: was actually introduced by Nicaragua. Yeah, there's apparently it's one
28:11
Speaker 1: of the most difficult documents to forge in the world. Yeah,
28:13
Speaker 1: I think it's become the standard. But they they're the
28:16
Speaker 1: ones who started it. Actually they started the trend. Um
28:21
Speaker 1: So I said that your passport is technically not yours.
28:24
Speaker 1: It's basically on loan from the government. This really irks
28:28
Speaker 1: a lot of people. There's um a couple of laws
28:31
Speaker 1: that have become proposed recently where UM one is if
28:37
Speaker 1: you owe the I R. S. Fifty dollars or more,
28:39
Speaker 1: you can have your passport revoked. Another is if you
28:43
Speaker 1: owe five thousand dollars or more in child support, you
28:48
Speaker 1: can have your passport revoked. And another one is if
28:51
Speaker 1: you have if you're accused of associating with terrorist organizations,
28:55
Speaker 1: you can have your passport revoked. Well, all three of
28:58
Speaker 1: those are meeting resist by people who say, hey, man,
29:02
Speaker 1: like there are ways for you, the U. S. Government
29:05
Speaker 1: to track all the people you need to track without
29:08
Speaker 1: revoking passports. We don't like you having that power overtly
29:11
Speaker 1: written down in law like this is a right that
29:15
Speaker 1: dates back to the Magna Carta. Um so let's just
29:18
Speaker 1: lay off of that. The U. S. Government says, shut up,
29:21
Speaker 1: we own your passports and you, by the way. Um
29:24
Speaker 1: So there is resistance to it, but I don't know
29:27
Speaker 1: how how well it's being met. And this program of
29:31
Speaker 1: revoking passports among um terrorists people associated with terrorist organizations.
29:38
Speaker 1: Have you read the drone papers from the intercept yet?
29:41
Speaker 1: So in it they talk about how that's becoming like
29:43
Speaker 1: a thing, and it suggests that it's a way of
29:46
Speaker 1: laying the groundwork for assassinations. Yeah, it's like your passports revoked,
29:52
Speaker 1: your technically not assistant anymore, so you're open for assassination
29:56
Speaker 1: overseas by like a drone strike or something. So yeah,
30:00
Speaker 1: so a lot of people are like, let's just leave
30:01
Speaker 1: the passports alone or save the passports out of this.
30:04
Speaker 1: You guys are really taking this, this this right and
30:08
Speaker 1: and provoking it based on like a hundred people in
30:13
Speaker 1: the whole world and in the whole country. Yeah. Um,
30:16
Speaker 1: so it's a it's a big thing. Interesting. Yeah, if
30:19
Speaker 1: you lose your passport while you're abroad, it's no fun. Um.
30:24
Speaker 1: And that's why they always recommend that you make copies
30:27
Speaker 1: of your passport and leave with like a family member
30:30
Speaker 1: at home that will help you get it back quicker
30:31
Speaker 1: after you fill out DS stroke sixty four. Yeah, and
30:35
Speaker 1: don't forget to make copies and keep them with you
30:37
Speaker 1: as well, like setting in your luggage too. That's a
30:40
Speaker 1: good idea. Uh. And I think what you can get
30:43
Speaker 1: hooked up at the embassy right whatever country you're in. Yeah,
30:46
Speaker 1: that's the first place i'd go if I was in trouble.
30:48
Speaker 1: Oh sure, because that's what they do in the movies.
30:51
Speaker 1: That's what Matt Damon always does. Did you see the
30:55
Speaker 1: thing about camouflage passports. This woman named on a Umla
31:03
Speaker 1: no no, what was her name? Donna Walker? Back in
31:06
Speaker 1: the eighties, she came up with this idea of camouflage passports.
31:09
Speaker 1: It's like a fake passport that somebody can have. That
31:13
Speaker 1: is is it's for a made up country. That sounds uninteresting.
31:17
Speaker 1: So if a terrorist is looking for Americans to kill
31:20
Speaker 1: and you show them your East Team or or well
31:23
Speaker 1: that's the country. Yeah, but like a made up passport
31:27
Speaker 1: that looks real, they might just pass you by for
31:30
Speaker 1: you know, somebody else. And uh, it's a real thing.
31:34
Speaker 1: They've been made an issue and people have made it
31:36
Speaker 1: out of Kuwait. I think Europeans made it out of
31:39
Speaker 1: Kuwait using camouflage passports. But it's also really wide open
31:43
Speaker 1: for you know, fraud, in that kind of that sounds
31:46
Speaker 1: argo esque, very argo esque. I'm from sea Land. Don't shoot, well,
31:52
Speaker 1: that's a real place to see land, dud dude didn't
31:59
Speaker 1: does that see theme? No? I can't. Oh, I think
32:05
Speaker 1: that was hey man, maybe go ahead? Go ahead? Is
32:11
Speaker 1: that where we are now? John looks like you're about well, Josh,
32:15
Speaker 1: you said go ahead, So that listening mail I did.
32:19
Speaker 1: I thought this was more passport stuff here about treating,
32:22
Speaker 1: so you don't have anything else? They take it? I don't.
32:24
Speaker 1: I mean, there's some other nitty gritty stuff. But what
32:26
Speaker 1: I would recommend as you read the how Stuff Works
32:27
Speaker 1: article because that's where it all lives, and there are
32:31
Speaker 1: some more details in there that we didn't reveal, and
32:33
Speaker 1: you will find that by typing that word in the
32:35
Speaker 1: search bar how stuff works dot com And I said,
32:38
Speaker 1: search bar. Now it's time for the go ahead. All right,
32:43
Speaker 1: all right, this is very special listener mail by the
32:45
Speaker 1: way from David. Hey, guys, just listen to the Vestigil
32:49
Speaker 1: Organs episode, and for the first time ever, you hit
32:52
Speaker 1: a flat note with me. Chuck was talking about receiving
32:55
Speaker 1: some criticism for joking around about calling men dumb. Josh
32:58
Speaker 1: seemed to dismiss the idea of anybody and eating to
33:00
Speaker 1: raise the mantle of men. Uh. It is clear to
33:02
Speaker 1: me that you were just being funny by deprecating maleness
33:05
Speaker 1: to shine a light on how great women are. I've
33:07
Speaker 1: always admired how thoughtful and gentleminely you guys are in
33:09
Speaker 1: regards to women. So I felt a twinch of pain
33:12
Speaker 1: at your apathy for the struggle of some men uh
33:14
Speaker 1: with their gender. And we gotta say, David, we didn't
33:19
Speaker 1: like you really opened their eyes here. I'm a male.
33:22
Speaker 1: I am also gay and short and introverted and emotional insensitive.
33:27
Speaker 1: Um it sounds like me, except I'm straight. As a child,
33:33
Speaker 1: being mail meant that I couldn't play with the toys
33:35
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I had a rough, had to rough
33:37
Speaker 1: alson play football with boys twice my size. As a teenager,
33:41
Speaker 1: I sat on the sidelines while all my female friends
33:44
Speaker 1: were going on dates and getting their first kisses from
33:46
Speaker 1: the boys I secretly liked. Eventually grew out of those problems,
33:49
Speaker 1: but even today I work in female dominated fields as
33:52
Speaker 1: an administrative assistant. My bosses are generally men, and I
33:55
Speaker 1: have missed out on a lot of opportunity because they
33:58
Speaker 1: often prefer my prettier female colleagues. I've often wondered, UH,
34:02
Speaker 1: if there's a part of their brain that is concerned
34:05
Speaker 1: with how they would be perceived working with a male assistant,
34:08
Speaker 1: Which a good point. Um. I've always wanted to be
34:11
Speaker 1: a father, and when I looked into a few years
34:13
Speaker 1: back I looked into it, I was dismayed with the
34:16
Speaker 1: suspicion and ignorance many people hold for single men who
34:19
Speaker 1: want to adopt, Uh, which is crazy. That's me talking.
34:24
Speaker 1: And of course, up until recently, being male prevented me
34:26
Speaker 1: from marrying the man I love. Being male has been
34:29
Speaker 1: an obstacle I've had overcome to get everything I have
34:33
Speaker 1: ever really wanted out of life. Perhaps being male has
34:36
Speaker 1: made a lot of men's lives easier, but for me
34:39
Speaker 1: it's been opposite. There's an increasingly wide gender disparity and
34:42
Speaker 1: academic achievement. Uh. Some devoted fathers suffered from bias family
34:46
Speaker 1: law that values female parents above male parents, and male
34:49
Speaker 1: victims of rape and domestic abuse face a lack of
34:52
Speaker 1: resources and an unsympathetic public. Man, this guy's hitting all
34:57
Speaker 1: the points. Male privileged doesn't work for all men. I
35:01
Speaker 1: know you didn't mean anything by the dumb guys comment
35:03
Speaker 1: was perhaps for two straight guys, was seemingly very happy lives.
35:07
Speaker 1: It isn't immediately apparent that other guys have you the
35:09
Speaker 1: advantages and disadvantages of being mailed differently. I hate to
35:13
Speaker 1: shine a light on this one small thing. These guys
35:15
Speaker 1: are awesome and do a great job. Uh. Just as
35:18
Speaker 1: you have alerted me to the complexities of hundreds of
35:21
Speaker 1: topics in your podcast, I hope you will examine the
35:23
Speaker 1: complexities of maleness and see that we cannot all be
35:27
Speaker 1: painted with one wide privileged brush. This is probably one
35:32
Speaker 1: of the best listener males we've ever gotten. Great, intelligent, uh, insightful,
35:37
Speaker 1: I mean, change changed just my perspective on things like
35:40
Speaker 1: I realized that by us saying, like, you know, us
35:43
Speaker 1: taking the liberty of on behalf of all men, putting
35:47
Speaker 1: down men in order to boost up women, that we
35:50
Speaker 1: were that like that in and of itself is the
35:53
Speaker 1: definition of male privilege, because we were just assuming that
35:56
Speaker 1: everybody has it as great as we do. And this
35:59
Speaker 1: guy pointed out that we were wrong. And thank you, David, Seriously,
36:03
Speaker 1: that is one of the best listener mails we've ever had. Yeah,
36:07
Speaker 1: thank you. A great way to end a bad podcast.
36:10
Speaker 1: If you want to see what you got, and you
36:13
Speaker 1: can try to compete with David's all time great listener mail.
36:17
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast.
36:20
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
36:22
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
36:24
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
36:27
Speaker 1: always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff
36:30
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
36:37
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot
36:40
Speaker 1: com