GUWonder

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-...d832cce3d6e663

The US House recently passed a bill that includes placing a sex offender designator in US passports. The bill is also likely to pass in the US Senate too in some form or another with this element maintained.

H.R.515 - International Megan's Law to Prevent Child Exploitation and Other Sexual Crimes Through Advanced Notification of Traveling Sex Offenders
114th Congress (2015-2016)

The US Congress has become hooked to going after US passports in further infringing upon Americans' freedom of movement.

Congress seems to be adding additional administrative punishments when courts should really be the place where sentences of punishments should be decided in full in the immediate aftermath of a conviction.

saizai

… o.o

Loren Pechtel

Yeah, anything to avoid having to actually prove things in court.

cestmoi123

Well, the original crime was already proved in court, it's the punishment they're trying to change post hoc.

GUWonder

This would also turn out to be a situation of the federal government changing ex-convicts' punishments after sentencing and doing so without having to prove in the relevant courts a legal basis for changing the sentence for crimes (crimes which may not even be federal crimes).

Often1

No, it's not anything of the sort.

The fact that an individual has been convicted of a crime is a matter of public record. Some individuals are required to register as sex offenders. That only happens to people who are either found guilty after trial or who plead guilty.

The fact that the law may require that those individuals' passports be appropriately noted in no way changes their sentence or discloses anything which isn't publicly available, although it does make it more readily available.

That is a public policy decision with which you may disagree, but it's a public policy decision.

GUWonder

That something may be a public policy decision does not put such decision beyond being scrutinized and criticized, even as apologists for any state power may try to legitimize the creeping police state actions by any play of convenience.

A designator in a passport for a specific criminal history is an additional punishment, a change in punishment after a sentence was already handed down.

If the goal of government officials in the US is to frustrate the international travels of American ex-cons who have been released from prison, why even issue such ex-cons passports? Governments generally issue passports to facilitate travel rather than to frustrate travel by its citizens.

Also, ICAO standard-compliant passports don't have a field for sex offender designation. So this crime designator is now to be a US "endorsement" in US passports? Talk about the US government endorsing sex offenders.

Not everything that is part of the public record must be included in a US passport.

saizai

Which would violate the rule against ex post facto laws.

Somehow I suspect that they'd claim in court that it's not a punishment or scarlet letter, just a non-punitive "notification system". And frankly my guess is that they would win.

… because it's required by multinational treaties, constitutional law, etc?

This way they get to say that they totally did issue it and are not stopping anyone from travelling. Just trying to get them killed or stopped by anyone who sees it.

GUWonder

There are US citizens who are already subject to US passport denial, even after having been released from prison, due to crimes for which they were convicted and sentenced.

saizai

E.g.?

GUWonder

Some international drug traffickers. Some weapons dealers.

saizai

… e.g.?

I'd like to know of specific examples of people whose passport has been formally taken, away other than during a period where they were being formally detained or imprisoned in some manner (or temporarily pending maintenance, e.g. issuance of a new passport or visa), and the legal basis for that action.

The only one I can think of is Edward Snowden.

GUWonder

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/22/51.61.

Not applicable to Snowden. [Snowden's passport was revoked without the US having the passport in its physical possession at the time of revocation; and it's worth following the motions of what the government of the US did in that situation and how since then the US has pushed hard for more countries/territories to scan passports for more database queries.]

saizai

Thanks for the pointer. Never saw that before.

However, it doesn't meet my criteria. It says that it only applies to people "subject to imprisonment or supervised release", i.e. people who are in fact formally imprisoned or quasi-imprisoned (on parole). Note the present tense — it's not people who *were* subject to imprisonment.

Snowden was and is neither. No charges have ever been brought against him TTBOMK; I have no idea what authority was invoked for "revoking" his passport without any sort of judicial proceeding.

GUWonder

In Haig v Agee, the Supreme Court was ok with the State Department revoking the passport of former CIA agent Philip Agee; and in that case the Court affirmed the authority of the US Secretary of State to revoke US passports when the person's activities in foreign countries were causing serious damage to national security. That's the kind of thing State relied upon when revoking Snowden's passport despite his passport not being in the physical possession of the US. It's also been done for people who have committed certain cross-border crimes using a US passport -- even after the sentence of such person for such crime has been completed.

Unfortunately, the US doesn't need statutory grounds to revoke/deny a US passport when the Executive can play the national security/foreign policy card. In that case, the Court basically upheld the notion that Americans' freedom to travel/reside abroad is subordinate to US national security and foreign policy considerations.

I am not saying that Snowden's passport being revoked was constitutional or not. Keep in mind that a passport in the US is recognized by the Courts as having two functions: one being to facilitate travel; and one being as a form of identifying a person as a citizen abroad. The Supreme Court has never said that the government has a right to revoke the identity of a US citizen as a US citizen. The Supreme Court has said that the government has a right to hold Americans' freedom to travel as subordinate to national security/foreign policy matters of sorts.

I am saying that the US does deny passports to some ex-cons who have served in full their sentence for some cross-border crimes that involved use of a US passport. One of those crimes is drug smuggling related.

I'm hoping we see more litigation against the US Government for denial/revocation/scarlet-lettering of US citizens' passports, if only to have the Court better inform Americans about all that the US Government is allowed to do and not do to Americans' freedom to travel/reside abroad.