Wired News had a short piece last week about the U.S. government's plan to require U.S. Passports to be embedded with RFID chips. The new requirement takes effect early in 2005.

That report has spawned growing chatter on the Web, on weblogs and discussion boards. Some people think RFID-chipped passports will be less secure than non-chipped passports.

I'm not ready to jump to that conclusion. Because it looks like some of the reports may be politically motivated.

Here is how the claim goes: any terrorist, kidnapper or pickpocket equipped with an RFID reader supposedly will be able to scan a crowd in an airport or large gathering, and immediately see who is an American. They could read all sorts of data about those individuals, including name, address, date of birth. They would have access to a digital photograph.

However, we all need to stop and make sure we have accurate, unbiased information before jumping to conclusions.

It seems that some commentators simply can't keep their political leanings out of this story. Remember, here in the United States we are less than two weeks away from a Presidential election.

For instance, any story that refers to "the Bush administration's plan" is automatically suspect in my mind. And I am going to scrutinize it carefully. Because those four words are usually political code-speak for "I-don't-support- President Bush's-re-election-and-neither-should-you-and-I'm-about-to-give-you another-reason-why-not." So I immediately suspect political motives when I read any report or opinion piece that starts that way.

One of the opinion pieces that many people seem to be relying on uses that politically-charged phrase no less than 4 times. I don't question the person's credentials, just the political slant.

Here's my take on this issue. Some people are reading into this a lot of information based on news reports and opinion pieces which are pretty short and, frankly, not all that clear.

For instance, the Wired article "implies" that the RFID chips in passports would contain all the private information about an individual. But is that really the case? Are those the facts?

Why would we assume that the US Department of State wouldn't handle the RFID issue similarly to the way SpeedPass handles it? That the information embedded in the passport is simply an identification code, and the identification code ties back to a secure database? And that it's the secure database which actually contains detailed data about the individual, not the RFID chip itself?

Thus, an RFID-chipped passport would simply reveal an identification code that is meaningless unless you also have access to the secure database. Any terrorist or identity thief with an RFID reader would not have access to your name, your date of birth, your address, your digital photo. All they would have is, say, an alpha-numerical code.

And in case you are worried about that database, well I don't know anyone who doesn't realize that their private information is already in a hundred databases somewhere -- government, financial, credit, education, employment or otherwise. That's a fact of everyday life in the 21st century. RFID technology does not change that fact.

And as to the claim that kidnappers will be able to pick Americans out of a crowd, well here's a news flash: any observant person can do that today.

I've done a fair amount of international travel. I never had much problem picking out other Americans in a crowd overseas. We Americans announce ourselves by the clothes we wear, the shoes we sport, when we open our mouths to speak, with the currency we flash around, by the book we may be carrying, etc. Someone with nefarious plans doesn't need an RFID reader to pick us out -- they just need to keep their eyes and ears open.

Until I see much more information about the passport issue, aired in an unbiased way, then I am not going to jump to conclusions. I refuse to get upset about something that may turn out to be a concern based on faulty information and political motivation.