Howzabout…

Dear Chairman Majoras:

Once issued, U.S. passports are sent by regular mail and cannot be tracked. This is astonishing to me. For a long period of time I was under the impression that my newly issued passport and an original copy of my birth certificate were in a single envelope lost in the mail delivery system. Talk about an identity theft Starter Kit!

In my case it turned out the letter was lost in the internal shuffle of the Passport Services Office and eventually found its way to me (well over a year later), but it could have ended up in the wrong hands easily. Multiple calls and emails to my various government representatives yielded nothing but shrugged shoulders. Supposedly the Postmaster General was notified directly of my situation, but the answer remained the same: a passport can’t be tracked once it leaves the processing center.

One does have the option to request expedited shipping with tracking, but unfortunately I didn’t opt for that. When I suggested to one of the various bureaucrats I encountered that certified mail be required of all applications, it was explained to me that it wouldn’t be fair for the government to compel people to spend the extra money. In this instance it seems as though the United States Postal Service could make arrangements to absorb that cost in the interest of national security.

This terrific oversight must be rectified.