I've been going in and out of the European Union several times over the past few weeks, using a European passport I obtained several years ago. Each time, the border control agent took a cursory glance at the binding of my old-style passport, which has no biometric information, and handed it back to me quickly. It seems as if he didn’t bother to check or confirm a single detail in the document, which then allowed me to wander freely across the 28 countries that make up most of the European landmass.
This sense of “free movement” is particularly apparent when compared to parallel experiences at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. Every encounter I have with the border control police in Israel is accompanied by glances back and forth between my passport and me, steady typing into the computer and constant flipping between the pages. This procedure for entering the country is yet another layer in an intricate process of identification and prevention developed by Israel’s security apparatus. It is a long and sometimes arduous process of testing and deception that is an integral part of the battle of wits being waged with terrorist organizations.
