Reliable mechanical engineering glossary.

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Note added at 31 mins (2004-07-18 22:10:25 GMT)
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See also \'plastic card punch\'
http://www.barcodescannersdiscount.com/carpunforpla.html

Guessing. I guess the cards (ID cards?) are not actually destroyed by invalidated, "obliterated" by having holes punched in them, in much the same way as invalidated passports have the corner cut off. Of course unlike paper documents, plastified ID cards cannot be stamped "CANCELLED".

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Note added at 5 hrs 7 mins (2004-07-19 02:46:52 GMT)
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Passports, not cards :

Invalidat e the passport by punching four holes through all pages and covers. To do this most easily, open the passport to center spine. Then punch the long side (as if reading the passport descriptive data page) in two different places about one fourth inch from the edge of the page using a ***two hole paper puncher***. Do the same for the other half of the passport book. For 48 page passports, take about 12 pages at a time. It is important to ensure that four holes go through the machine readable zone (MRZ) at the bottom of the descriptive data page. The canceled passport may be returned to the bearer unless it must be submitted to the Department because of fraud, mutilation, or other reason
[foia.state.gov/masterdocs/07fam/07m1390.pdf]

Two hole paper puncher, eh, John? What s*x, I wonder ;-).