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Comment by dev1n | Hacker News Reader

I like how Holder says "Despite the revocation of his passport... Snowden remains a citizen" Holder revoked his passport without trial and yet the U.S. still considers Snowden a citizen [1]? How is this so?

[1]: http://answers.usa.gov/system/selfservice/selfservice.contro...

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Passports are not the same as citizenship. Many Americans are full citizens and never bothered to apply for a passport in their lives. You were probably passportless until you applied for a passport.

It is really hard for the US government to take away citizenship - generally that only happens to naturalized persons who blatantly lied on their citizenship application. For example, Nazi concentration camp guards in WW2 who hid the role they played there.

Taking away your ability to freely move outside your country of citizenship (i.e. your passport) should be just as hard to revoke as your citizenship.

The Supreme Court has upheld the freedom to move state to state [1]; the freedom to move through other countries outside of the US (if you're a US citizen) is an inalienable right as well (with the permission of the hosting countries of course).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Guest

Passport revocation is pretty routine for suspects facing serious charges though:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppi/info/info_870.html

A federal, state or local law enforcement agency may request the denial or revocation of a passport on several regulatory grounds set forth in 22 C.F.R. §§ 51.60, 51.61, and 51.62. The principal law enforcement reasons for passport denial or revocation are an unsealed federal, state, or local felony arrest warrant, a federal or state criminal court order or a condition of parole or probation forbidding departure from the United States (or the jurisdiction of the court), or a request for extradition to or from the United States. Any such request needs to include a copy of the arrest warrant or criminal court order. Please also be advised that all passport applicants are run through various law enforcement and other databases.

Thank you for the information. What you have explained is not as clearly stated in the three bullets in the reasons for passport revocations on the site I linked to.

Surrendering your passport while awaiting trial isn't unheard of though, right? If they think you're a flight risk, your movements will be limited.

In this case they want to talk to him but he's already fled, so by cancelling his passport they're trying to limit further movement by him.

Regardless, having a passport doesn't magically grant you the ability to move around as you wish. It's up to the destination country (and countries you're transiting perhaps) to decide if they want to accept your passport as a form of ID. I'm sure countries have accepted plenty of people without a passport (asylum seekers, people moving around Europe, etc.).

What about people with dual nationality? AFAIK a country can only make you surrender the passport they have issued since the other passports you may possess are property of the governments that issued them.

I guess a judge can impose whatever conditions they want on your bail. "Surrender all the passports you have, or if you don't want to do that you can go sit in jail."

The absurd amount of misinformation surrounding this story is the reason people like you say things like that. It is rampant on HN, don't feel bad.

    Revocations
    DOS revokes passports that were:
    - obtained illegally or through fraud
    - Altered or misused
    - Issued to individuals whose Certificate of Citizenship
    or Certificate of Naturalization was canceled

How is this misinformation?

That link doesn't give all the information about why passports can be revoked. They can also be revoked by court order, if there's an arrest warrant or extradition request.

Thanks to you and arbuge I understand this now. irishcoffee added no alternative explanation as to how my comment's source was misinformation. I figured I should give irishcoffee a chance to explain his/her reason for calling it misinformation when the title of the site itself was called answers.usa.gov.

Not having a valid passport does not affect citizenship status.

Except in every practical way... ergo, the common misunderstanding.

Not really. Most Americans don't have a passport and it doesn't affect them at all.

I can't imagine there are very many Americans that are _not in the US_ that don't have a passport and it doesn't affect them at all.

Unless you're in transit between countries, it doesn't affect you as much as you might think. I lived in Japan for a year and pretty much only used my passport when I entered and left the country. Same goes with my sisters who moved overseas. They take out their US passport about once every 4 years, when they come back to the USA to visit.

In Russia, it's actually super important since foreigners need to register at the local police station with their passport in any town/city where they state more than a few days. Not registering within the allotted time period, based on dates of transportation tickets like a train ticket or flight stub, makes you the target of police extortion.

Russia is definitely one of those "Ihre papiere bitte" countries.

A passport is not a necessary document or even relatively important to most US citizens. I usually get funny looks when I use mine in country as an ID, and have twice been told (in error) that it was not valid as a form of ID.

For example, IIRC US national IDs (passport and green card) are not a form of valid ID for the sake of notarization services in the State of California. However the IDs issued by other states are.

Approximately half of adult Americans don't have a passport. This is because you never need it unless you need to travel internationally.

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