I think you misunderstand. It’s normal in US to carry IDs, usually driver licenses. But those are state-issued IDs. They are becoming unreliable when dealing with federal authorities, however, because they don’t prove citizenship. For example, my permanent resident wife has a state ID, she also has a social security card, and other documents, but she is not a US citizen, so her ID she carries does not verify her right to be here. (She has another card for that, which until recently she likewise did not carry regularly since for 99% of needs the state ID is sufficient.)

A passport is one of the few federal IDs we have that also prove citizenship, and probably most Americans, or a very significant number of them, do not have one or did not have one until semi recently. It was about 12 years ago the US stopped accepting state ID to enter the US from Canada, which meant most people could cross that border without passport. Plenty of Americans have either never left the country or only traveled to Canada thus never needed a passport. (Kind of a big country.)

So yes, it is new for them to have to carry passports, which aren’t nearly as convenient as the existing state IDs which fit in a wallet, as well as, kind of a pain in the ass to replace if lost or stolen – it can take months to get a replacement. (Ditto for PR cards; last time she renewed her it took 14 months(!).)

As of a few years back you can now also get a “passport card” which is a federal ID (it is also a REAL ID, for you statesiders). I have both, and I do carry the card version with me.

passport card’s way more portable btw

Trufax. OCD was the autism of the 90s. Everyone insisted they had it. You’re not OCD, aunt helen, you’re just an oppressive control freak. Now it’s, you’re not autistic, tyler, you’re just a self-focused unforgiving dick

Censor in chief

because /c/196 moved here after the reddit blackout over the api crackdown and I thought it would like, stick, but

you get 100 of them in formation and light the enemy on fire with the sun’s rays

Dude, I was literally thinking this a couple weeks ago, Trump bringing back battleships is completely on brand for him and I’m surprised honestly it took him this long

I dunno that I would have made Gnome as it is, and I don’t know that all the advances to Gnome has been better or not, but, kde, really? Maybe you’re just a boring guy

I seem to recall an early 00s screed, perhaps by Bruce Schneier or someone of that ilk, suggesting a future in which yes we have surveillance in the public square, but since it’s public, everyone has full access to all the public-place cameras at any time. So you could use it to, say, see around the corner of an alley at night.

This is the Mozilla Foundations version of “we dun goofed”