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by EDWARD HASBROUCK on APRIL 22, 2011

If you don’t want it to get even harder for a U.S. citizen to get a passport — now required for travel even to Canada or Mexico — you only have until Monday to let the State Department know.

The U.S. Department of State is proposing a new Biographical Questionnaire for some passport applicants: 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.”

The State Department estimated that the average respondent would be able to compile all this information in just 45 minutes, which is obviously absurd given the amount of research that is likely to be required to even attempt to complete the form.

It seems likely that only some, not all, applicants will be required to fill out the new questionnaire, but no criteria have been made public for determining who will be subjected to these additional new written interrogatories. So if the passport examiner wants to deny your application, all they will have to do is give you the impossible new form to complete. . . .

You can submit comments to the State Dept. online at Regulations.gov until midnight Eastern time on Monday, April 25, 2011. Go here, then click the “Submit a Comment” button at the upper right of the page. If that link doesn’t work for you, it’s probably a problem with the javascript used on the Regulations.gov website. There are alternate instructions for submitting comments by email here.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has proposed cutting the state’s main student-grant program by about $88-million in his 2009-10 budget, including capping grants to students at public universities and phasing out a program that provides grants to 22,500 mostly nontraditional students.

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AUGUST 23--Parents of minors starring in "Kid Nation," the controversial new CBS reality show, signed away their rights to sue the network and the show's producers if their child died, was severely injured, or contracted a sexually transmitted disease during the program's taping. The blanket liability waivers are contained in a detailed "participant agreement" prepared by the show's producers and signed by parents. That document, a copy of which you'll find below, also gave consent to CBS and its production partners to make medical treatment decisions on the minor's behalf (including surgery), though the network made no promises about the "qualifications or credentials" of medical professionals that might treat the stars of "Kid Nation," which was originally titled "The Manhattan Project." The show, which debuts next month, features 40 children (ages 8-15) living in a New Mexico "ghost town" for 40 days without adult supervision.