Transcript of the above video: 

I have done videos in the past; I haven't done this in quite a while regarding US Passport revocation in the context of tax and child support. For those who are unaware, for those who get into arrears of their child support back in the United States, over a certain threshold, they can actually see their passport revoked while abroad. I have dealt with cases like this in the past where somebody is abroad, it turns out they are behind and in arrears on their child support and there is a mechanism at law whereby the State Authorities associated with maintaining compliance with child support under the Family Law Courts, will notify the Department of State that someone is in arrears and it will cause the Department of State to say well we are nullifying that person's passport. What is the effect on that person? 

Well if they go for example, oftentimes where I would see there is somebody would be going to the Embassy for example to get their passport renewed, or to get pages added back when you could add pages, and during that process the Embassy would become aware of hey you have got back child support and they would say, "hey, we're not giving you back your passport. We will give you a travel letter so that you can travel back to the United States, settle this in that jurisdiction, and then we will issue a new passport. You can come back abroad but until then, we are not issuing you your passport." I've seen that happen. It was a child support issue primarily, then it was expanded - we can all thank Nancy Pelosi for this one - it was expanded so that tax arrears over $50,000 or more could result in the IRS notifying the Department of State who could then revoke your passport for that. That is a pretty substantial thing, and I saw cases involving that a few years ago where people, again they might have been renewing their passport and  it came to the attention of the Department of State, “hey you have arrears of taxes; we are not going to give you your passport; we will give you a travel letter to go back to your home country and go ahead and deal with it back home, deal with it with the IRS, make some sort of offer and compromise, pay it off whatever, and then we will issue your passport”. But that is basically a law that was promulgated roughly in the last 10 years where they can take passport for tax matters. 

Now it looks like they are trying to revoke passports over “terrorism.” I find this a bit concerning; I'll get into it here in a moment. That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from MSNBC, that is msnbc.com, the article is titled: GOP Bill to empower Marco Rubio to revoke passports draws public backlash. Quoting directly: "House Republicans eyeing legislation that would give the Trump Administration, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in particular, broad powers to revoke American citizens' passports are having second thoughts in the face of public backlash."

So, real quick while I am talking about this here on this channel, I'm doing deep dive analysis in this in our long form videos on our paid new service. If you are interested in that, you can email us, [email protected], you can get on the email list to get the long form videos where I do deep dive analysis on this stuff. Also, while I'm talking my book, my better half and I have set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, breakfast anytime. It is called the Pancake Palace. You can check us out there it's also American Diner style food; we will put some photos up. hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chilli bowls, buffalo wings, all of it down at the Pancake Palace. Links in the description below for the address so you can find your way there; we'd love to see you. 

That said, quoting further, again from msnbc.com. "The Bill in question H.R. 5300, was introduced by Rep. Brian Mast, Republican of Florida, who has supported deporting "terrorist sympathizers" - whatever that means – quoting directly: "a term he's used to describe pro-Palestinian activists like Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. Ostensibly focused on rooting out terrorism and the trafficking of contraband, Mast’s bill drew backlash over the weekend amid reporting from The Intercept on provisions that would grant the Secretary of Statewide latitude to target people over their views." And again, quoting directly: "broad powers to revoke American citizens' passports." So again because of your views now?

First of all okay, the child support thing I got, that made sense to me. Tax, I didn't agree with it in any shape or form, but I at least could understand the argument. I mean what are the privileges and immunities of US citizenship if not freedom of speech to have whatever opinions you want, whether they are "in sympathy with" “terrorists” or not. And look, I'm not one who has any affinity for America's enemies, okay, that's not my point, and I'm not saying who's an enemy and who's not, who I think that is. That is my business, those are my own opinions. At the end of the day, this sounds tantamount to trying to take people's passports for the opinions that they have. It's ridiculous, okay. Also very creepy vibes, very creepy vibes taking away people's passports over things, also creepy vibes having to do with denaturalization of folks that seems to come from their political leanings etc. That's not what America was built on it. It gives me these creepy vibes of Vichy, France. I remember reading a book - I think it was Fall of the Third Republic if I am not wrong, or maybe a book about Pétain when they were talking about Vichy, France and how France - especially during the collaboration period - was very prone to denaturalizing especially Jewish folks in France, and then deporting them off to places unknown, by the French usually, but places where we all know they did not have generally speaking, a happy ending. It was not a place that ended up well for those people. It was bad. They deported them basically sometimes to certain death. This has the undertones of that kind of stuff. Taking away people's passports over their sympathies? Come on. We're America, that's not what we do. 

Again, I have my own problems with passport reputation associated with tax and there are arguments to be made for and against this child support provision, but to have passport revocation for one's opinions, that's just ridiculous. That said, we will be keeping you updated on this channel as this situation evolves.