Strategic Goal 6: American Citizens

Strategic Goal 6: American Citizens Assist American Citizens to Travel, Conduct Business, and Live Abroad Securely

The Department has no more vital responsibility than the protection of American citizens. Approximately 3.2 million Americans reside abroad, and Americans make about 60 million trips outside the United States each year.  The Department issues a passport that gives Americans the freedom to travel internationally and is a symbol of the protection that the USG provides its citizens. 

U.S. embassies and consulates provide a range of services that protect U.S. citizens from the cradle to the grave.  The Department must plan for the unexpected and be prepared to respond to crises abroad, transportation disasters, and other situations in which U.S. citizens need assistance, including incidents of terrorism and other serious crimes such as hostage taking, homicide, assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and international parental child abduction.  The Department ensures that host governments take steps to protect Americans from crime and unrest; develop effective investigative, prosecutorial, and other judicial capabilities to respond to American victims of crime; and expand their cooperation and information sharing with the United States in order to prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens.  The Department also works with foreign governments, other USG agencies, and international organizations on transportation security initiatives. 

To alert Americans to conditions that may affect safety and travel abroad, the Department disseminates threat assessments to posts abroad and announcements to the public as quickly as possible using all available means.  The Department uses its websites and the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), a government-private sector partnership, to foster creative solutions to security‑related issues affecting U.S. private sector interests abroad and to share USG threat information and security expertise overseas to protect their personnel, property, proprietary information, and other assets. The Department is making its websites increasingly accessible and interactive. 

The Department will continue training consular officers, enhancing the systems that they use to provide services to Americans, and otherwise preparing them to assist Americans in need. The Department will enhance its crisis management capability and ability to track how many U.S. citizens abroad are victims of terrorism and other serious crimes such as kidnapping, homicide, rape, assault, and child abuse. The Department will continue to provide American businesses and private organizations with a forum to address their security concerns via the Overseas Security Advisory Council. As a result of these efforts, at the end of 2004, Americans will be better equipped to deal with the uncertainties of life abroad, and the Department will be better equipped to help when they encounter trouble.

The Department plans to expand the Consular Call Center’s scope to provide routine and non-Privacy Act information regarding the safety and welfare of American citizens abroad. Thus, by the end of FY 2004, case officers will no longer have to spend large amounts of time on routine inquiries and can devote the majority of their time helping Americans who face difficulties abroad.  To improve the ability of Americans to make informed decisions about personal security in foreign countries, the Department will revise all Consular Information Sheets on an annual basis by the end of FY 2004.

The Department will improve its ability to collect registration information and make it accessible to the field by creating an Internet site allowing Americans to register their travel plans.  Providing the option of registration on-line will encourage more Americans to register their presence abroad, improving the chances of being able to contact them in an emergency and to offer assistance. By the end of 2004, enhancements to the on-line registration system will also deliver travel safety information about the countries on their itinerary to citizens when they register.

The Department will focus on implementation of the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention in 2004.  In accordance with the Convention and U.S. implementing legislation, the Department will assume new responsibilities and roles, including oversight of an accrediting entity (or entities) for intercountry adoptions and mechanisms for registering complaints concerning adoption service providers.  The Department will seek contractual support for discrete or one-time functions, such as the development of training and informational materials. It is anticipated that the treaty will enter into force for the United States in 2004.   At the end of FY 2004, as a result of the Department’s efforts, the Convention will govern American adoption from fifty countries; protect the rights of children and parents; and help Americans avoid the child trafficking, fraud, corruption, and other irregularities that have disrupted intercountry adoptions in the past. 

The Department will continue to expand the Voting Assistance Program to increase overseas absentee voter participation in the 2004 elections.

Revise all Consular Information Sheets on an annual basis.

·         Expand the services provided by the contractor-operated Call Center, freeing Department staff to create and update information more frequently.

Deliver Consular Information Program documents via the on-line registration system to U.S. citizens when they register.

·         Develop a standard, worldwide Internet site allowing American citizens to register with any post or to record itineraries and emergency contacts for short trips abroad. 

·         Make the Internet-based Registration Service easy to use and ensure that functionality, technical, and security aspects are aligned with Department directives, integrated with current and future consular systems, and facilitate the sharing of travel information among consular sections and systems. 

·         Complete and deploy additional functionality, including the ability to collect long‑term registrations for overseas posts and provide information to registrants. 

Select accrediting agency/agencies to process all adoption providers that qualify for accreditation; deposit U.S. instruments of accession.

·         Assign more staff to this area and obtain contractual support for discrete or one-time functions.

·         Promulgate regulations establishing accreditation/approval standards, criteria, and procedures; designate one or more entities to accredit U.S. adoption agencies for intercountry adoptions and approve other bodies and persons wishing to provide adoption services covered by the Convention.

·         Create a computerized case-tracking system for U.S. intercountry adoptions, both incoming and outgoing.

·         Establish a program to share information with adoption service providers, state courts and public authorities, the U.S. adoption community, and future adoptive parents concerning their role in compliance with the requirements of the Convention, the implementing legislation, and federal regulations.

A major near-term focus will be the development of a system to introduce biometrics into the U.S. passport.  The Department anticipates that, because of U.S. requirements in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act that mandate the adoption of biometrics in foreign travel documents used to enter the United States, other nations will implement reciprocal requirements for U.S. visitors.  The Department will work with other nations to develop biometric standards for passports and in 2004 will begin to develop systems and procedures to collect biometrics. The need to incorporate biometrics and other security devices will require a redesign of the U.S. passport so that it can include a device, such as an embedded chip, onto which the biometric data can be written.  By 2004, the Department will have taken the first steps toward a more secure passport that can be linked to the true bearer by biometric technology, making use by impostors virtually impossible.

By 2004, the Department will modify the systems used at posts to enable electronic transmission of passport application data, including digital photographs, from overseas posts to a domestic passport office to cut down on processing time and maximize the number of passports issued in the more secure, digitized format. The Department anticipates processing 7.1 million passport applications in 2003 and 7.6 million in 2004.  Workload projections show that yearly passport demand could rise to more than 9 million by 2008, which exceeds the production capacity of the existing infrastructure. In the interim, the Department will construct and equip a passport facility in the western United States to meet the anticipated demand for passports.

To further homeland security initiatives, the Department will continue through 2004 a project to image digitally 32 million passport records dating from 1994 to 1999, 450,000 lookout files relating to persons who may not be issued passports or whose applications require special scrutiny, and 200,000 citizenship and loss of nationality files.  The scanning of applications for older but still valid passports and other important citizenship documents will provide the benefit of making images as well as data available to consular offices worldwide, adding speed and security to the passport process and contributing to homeland and border security.

Photo substitution is now more difficult with the photodigitized passport; the Department will continue to identify ways to enhance the physical integrity of the passport.  In addition to maintaining document security, the Department must now close the loop on fraud perpetrated during the application process.  The Department has done preliminary work with the Social Security Administration (SSA), which is establishing connections with the vital records offices of the fifty states.  The Department expects to have electronic access to SSA data by 2004.  Beginning in FY 2004, the comparison of documents and information provided by passport applicants against the original records held by other agencies will be an important step toward greater integrity of the passport adjudication process by minimizing the potential for breeder-document fraud.  The Department will continue efforts to detect, investigate, and seek assistance from U.S. attorneys to prosecute passport fraud.

Prepare for 2005 roll out of the system by developing software, conducting initial procurement, and beta testing for biometrics collection.

·         Identify the security devices that will be embedded in the new passport and complete the design for the passport. 

·         Sign new MOUs with application acceptance facilities, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Government Printing Office (GPO) and/or other partners in the passport process, as necessary.

·         Establish a contractual source for public key infrastructure and key management that will be necessary for the digital signing of the documents and the control of keys with agencies and other governments that will read the passport. 

·         Procure and install systems and equipment to capture and enroll personal biometrics at passport agencies and application acceptance facilities, transfer biometric data securely from enrollment locations to issuance facilities, check data against existing records, and store data on-board the passport and in the Department’s electronic records systems.

Check 35 percent of applications against SSA death records.

·         Identify the fields that might be used in the data exchange process to confirm identities.

·         Negotiate a MOU or other arrangement with SSA to establish a data link that would provide the Department with access to current Social Security number data and death records.  

·         Work with SSA to expand the Vital Records Verification Project.

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