Thanks to Glenn Sacks for finding this L.A. Times Editorial Commentary on
Paternity Fraud (and other issues)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-welch21aug21,0,123074.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Editorial contains link to article “The Innocent Third Party: Victims of
Paternity Fraud”

Found at:   http://defaultpaternity.org/pdf/flq-0706.pdf
                                                                                     
Land of the Less-Free                                                                                 
New passport and child-support laws are making the country less free for law abiding citizens.                     
By Matt Welch                                                                                     
August 21, 2007                                                                                      
                                                                                          
What kind of America-hating ghoul would be against Strengthening Our Borders or going after Deadbeat Dads? After all, the  terrorists are busy plotting another 9/11, and the children continue to suffer.                       
                                                                                          
But when Democrats and Republicans agree on bumper-sticker policy, it’s the rest of us law-abiding citizens who are at  risk, whether we know it or not. And right now the federal government is determined to use such once-sacrosanct documents  as passports, Social Security numbers and drivers licenses to try to restrict all manner of bad or unpopular behavior —    behavior that in most cases is complletely unrelated to the limited areas of work and travel these documents are supposed   to regulate.                                                                                 
                                                                                          
Beginning this New Year’s Day, all Americans — includinng the significant non-terrorist population — are requirred by U.S.
law to show a valid U.S. passport when reentering the country by air from anywhere within the Western Hemisphere. By Jan.
31, 2008, the requirement will be expanded to include crossings by land or sea. No more cruising down to Baja for the
weekend without a water-stamped, biometrically sound international travel document!                    
                                                                                          
Until the new restriction kicked in, about one in five Americans bothered to get a passport, according to the Associated
Press. That number is near one in four now, and will swell to one in two by 2010, the State Department has estimated. The
results have been utterly predictable by everyone except the government agencies tasked with processing the paperwork —
terrible baccklogs and delays. “A passport rule leads to thousands of ruined travel plans,” read the International Herald
Tribune headline:                                                                                 
                                                                                          
By summer, more than 2 million people were waiting for passports; half a million had waited more than three months
since applying for a document that in the past was typically ready in six weeks.                        
                                                                                          
The backlog destroyed summer vacations, ruined wedding and honeymoon plans and disrupted business meetings and
education plans. People lost work days waiting in lines or thousands of dollars in nonrefundable travel deposits.
But what’s a little travel inconvenience and expenditure for the jet-set, right? Wrong. The drivers license-standardizing
Real ID Act of 2005, inspired (as such bills usually are) by a mix of hysteria and concern about both immigration and
national security, is being used by a newly (and bitterly) emboldened Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff to threaten
foot-dragging states with the prospect of forcing all citizens to show a passport before boarding an airplane or even
entering a federal building.                                                                                 
                                                                                          
“This is not a mandate. A state doesn’t have to do this,” Chertoff told the AP this month, disingenuously. “But we’ve been
very clear and the law is very clear, if the state doesn’t have at the end of the day, the end of the deadline, Real
ID-compliant licenses, then that state cannot expect that those licenses will be accepted for federal purposes.”
                                                                                          
That won’t be the only new form of identification required for all of us, if legislators have their way. Chances are
strong that all employees in the United States will soon have to show evidence of tamper-proof work-eligibility status —

something greater than a Social Security card. “Anybody who doesn’t have that,” Arizona Sen. John McCain recently told the
Arizona Republic, “then the employer who hired them would be prosecuted.”                  
                                                                                          
OK, so everyone —” for the first time in U.S. history, mind you — will neeed a passport and tamper-proof work ID. It’s not
like the government would use those requirements to squeeze money or obedience out of you, right?
                                                                                          
Think again.                                                                                    
                                                                                          
The “Welfare Reform Act,” which really should be referred to by it’s creepy official name (The Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Act), was another mid-1990s triumph of bipartisan problem-solving, and one of its many state-enhancing
stipulations that hasn’t gotten much press until recently is that the State Department will deny you a passport — even if
you’ve lost yours overseas — €” if a database shows that you owe more than $2,500 in child support. The Passport Denial
Program recently cut the minimum down from $5,000, and what with that new border-securing boom in U.S. passports, the cash
haul from document-starved “deadbeat dads” has doubled already in 2007, helped by such one-off hauls as a Los Angeles
County man who coughed up $311,491 when he was marooned without a passport in Hong Kong.                         
                                                                                          
A recent triumphant AP story on the program (Passport Rules Snag Child Support Cash!) reads with all the skepticism of a
Granma piece on Dengue Fever-eradication:                                                                        
                                                                                          
In all, states have reported collecting at least $22.5 million through the program thus far in 2007. The money is
then forwarded to the parent to whom it is owed.                                                       
                                                                                          
Some people never learn.                                                                                    
Neither do some news organizations. All it takes in Los Angeles County to be declared the father of a child — aand
therefore on the hook for any and all back child support, with interest — is for a mother to provvide your name, the
Department of Child Support Services to send you a summons choked in legalese, and for you to fail to return it within 30
days. Such “default judgments”— which amount to 45% of all paternity-esstablishments in the state of California in 2005
(down from an appalling 68% five years previous) — are nootoriously hard to undo once the wheels of justice are set in
motion (greased by states’ financial incentives from the federal government to establish as many paternities as possible).
                                                                                          
It happened recently to a 19-year-old Palmdale kid (said to be the father of four). It’s happened to untold numbers of gay
men, and women with manly first names. It happened to a good friend of mine, whose never-used Christian name (Anthony
Pierce) was uttered by a woman he’d never met in Northern California, thus putting him on the hook for a 10-year-old. It
even happened to a local Navy vet who took a paternity test establishing his innocence. If you still don’t believe how
ridiculously easy it is for the state to pin false paternity on you, then garnish your wages (including unemployment
checks!) and prevent you from leaving the country, read this, and weep.                         
                                                                                          
No doubt, kids are getting more money for child support. And terrorists, theoretically, might have a more difficult time
entering the country. But at what cost to the rest of us? One American who’s long since left the country put it recently
like this:                                                                                     
                                                                                          
[T]he Magna Carta principle that citizens have the right to travel internationally unless they stand accused or
convicted of a crime has been abrogated. What’s next? Passport refusals on the grounds that one’s student loan
payments are delinquent? Denials of passports because of mortgage defaults? It’s a bit ironic that a nation which
historically has been a refuge for the destitute seeking a new start could become one big debtors’ prison with the
combination of provisions like the Passport Denial Program, oppressive bankruptcy laws and a failing economy.

Hyperbole? Maybe. But as long as both parties are coming together to Secure Our Borders and punish marginalized citizens,
your freedom and mine will continue to erode.                                                      
                                                                                          
Matt Welch is assistant Editorial Page editor.