April 27, 2011 4:51PM # Not the Transparency I Was Hoping For By [David Rittgers](https://www.cato.org/people/david-rittgers) --- SHARE The Obama administration’s record on open government [isn’t so hot](http://www.slate.com/id/2292241/?from=rss), but the State Department expects the utmost in transparency from anyone applying for a passport. Here are the details on a [proposed passport application](http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/state-dept-wants-to-make-it-harder-to-get-a-passport/): > The proposed new Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history including employers’ and supervisors names, addresses, and telephone numbers; personal details of all siblings; mother’s address one year prior to your birth; any “religious ceremony” around the time of birth; and a variety of other information. According to the proposed form, “failure to provide the information requested may result in … the denial of your U.S. passport application.” This document is only intended for those who do not have a birth certificate, so additional scrutiny is warranted. But compliance with the form is a mixture of the difficult and the impossible. Security clearances generally only require employment and residence information going back seven or ten years, but this form asks for a lifetime accounting of both. Providing details on the circumstances of your birth is asking a lot — but a listing of pre-natal appointments? To cap it off, the State Department estimates that the average person will only require 45 minutes to compile the information for this form. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).