Visitors get break on passport rule

WASHINGTON - Millions of visitors from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and much of Europe are getting a temporary reprieve from a new U.S. requirement that they carry passports that can be read by scanning machines.

All were supposed to have the passports starting Tuesday. But the Homeland Security Department announced Friday that visitors from those countries who haven't gotten new passports will be granted a one-time exemption.

Anyone granted an exemption will be notified that if they don't have a new passport the next time they may be refused entry.

Border and Transportation Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said the new policy will help make sure that people's first experience in the United States is positive. He said the rule will be reviewed after six months. "These are prudent steps to ease travelers into these new documentation requirements," he said.

The new "machine-readable" passports have printed biographical data and a photograph that meet international standards and can be read by an optical scanner.

The USA Patriot Act passed after the Sept. 11 attacks required people from the 27 "visa-waiver" countries to have machine-readable passports by Oct. 1, 2003. Travelers from visa-waiver countries are allowed into the United States for up to 90 days using only a passport.

Many countries couldn't meet the deadline for the new passports, so it was extended to Tuesday. U.S. officials decided to include a one-time exemption because some people may not have been aware of the requirement.

The deadline applies to people from: Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

People from four visa-waiver countries that didn't ask for an extension have had to use the machine-readable passports since Oct. 1, 2003. They are Andorra, Brunei, Liechtenstein and Slovenia. Belgian nationals have been required to present the machine-readable passports since May 16, 2003.

An estimated 13-million people from visa-waiver countries visit the United States each year.

Additional electronic information - fingerprints and photographs - will be required on visa-waiver passports by Oct. 26, 2005.

WASHINGTON - With a deadline looming, the government has yet to come up with guidelines for commercial airports that want to replace federal baggage and passenger screeners with privately employed workers.

The application period begins Nov. 19 and will likely end three weeks later, but the Transportation Security Administration hasn't announced qualified private security companies. Nor has it established criteria for airports to participate in the program.

The agency hasn't even prepared a final application for airports to fill out.

TSA spokeswoman Amy von Walter said the agency has set up an e-mail address so airports can submit specific questions. Until then, she said, "We don't have a specific date on final guidance at this time as we continue to work a few issues, including liability."

FLIGHT SCHOOLS: The federal government has begun conducting background checks on all foreigners seeking to attend U.S. flight schools, the Transportation Security Administration said Friday. The expanded security measures, aimed in part at preventing terrorists from taking pilot lessons here as some of the Sept. 11 hijackers did, now apply to any foreigner seeking flight training in the United States, not just those learning to fly larger aircraft.

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