Foreigners, especially in Europe, travel between countries a lot more than we do, and are probably more used to this sort of thing. When we were in Europe, they seemed pretty laid back about the borders, (part of the whole EU thing) with only routine examination of our passports. Most of our getting stamps in our passports was for souvenir value. Don't know what it's like nowadays. Maybe Raoul can ring in on this.

Our family keeps our passports up to date. We first all got passported when my daughter went to Australia and had to get one. The rest of us did too, because I wanted to be able to head for Australia if she needed us. Later, we used them in Europe.

Renewed since then, and our current ones are good until 2014.

We've had mostly open borders in the U.S. for a long time, and given the known security issues, I see this as a fairly reasonable precaution. Like with voter IDs, I wouldn't mind them subsidizing the fees a bit for people with financial issues.

As with port security, tightening movement across the borders is something any government might see as a needed security step.