http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/26/news/passport.html
"The State Department will soon begin issuing passports that carry information about the traveler in a computer chip embedded in the cardboard cover as well as on its printed pages.
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Privacy advocates say the new format, developed in response to security concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks, will be vulnerable to electronic snooping by anyone within several feet. Internal State Department documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, show that Canada, Germany and Britain have raised the same concern"
