Edward Hasbrouck, when discussing the issue of RFID Passports at CFP with Frank Moss, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the Department of State, had this to say about RFID Passports:

"Here’s the scenario I posed him: Suppose I’m a terrorist or ID thief who wants to assume someone else’s identity, and get credentials in their name. I send an accomplice who knows what my face looks like, with an RFID reader in a large piece of wheeled luggage or a big backpack, to hang out in an airport or hotel lobby until they spot someone who looks similar enough to me. When they see a suitable victim, they follow them up to the check-in counter, and stand right behind or next to the victim when they open their passport — with a 40kg (100 lb) RFID reader within 50-70 cm (18"-24") of the victim’s passport . Then I use that data and photo (a thief might be able to get the data from a non-RFID passport with a hidden camera, but they wouldn’t get a sharp, perfectly posed and framed ID photo, and it would likely be obscured by the overprinting and holograms) to forge or acquire either a "cloned" duplicate passport (with a bitwise copy of the RFID chip, including the valid digital signature) or some other easier-to-get identity credential."

I am hard-pressed to get really riled up by this scenario.