Ah, Wikipedia. Savior of internet debaters and bane of those who try to set themselves in a positive light against the connected masses. And now, apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is relying on it to reinforce their own legal arguments. Or maybe not.

It seems that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals had to tell the DHS and the Board of Immigration Appeals that Wikipedia is no excuse for evidence to use in their proceedings. In this particular case, an Ethiopian woman had entered with false papers, seeking asylum. The DHS and Immigration dutifully looked up her real papers from back home on Wikipedia and decided (based on the wiki article about the documents she was using) that they weren't good enough proof of identity.

You'd think that it should be common sense--Wikipedia is great for learning about stuff in general when you're bored, but given that there's no requirement of actual knowledge in order to edit entries there, it's pretty commonly agreed that it shouldn't be used for anything where documentation and proof are important.

But with the government and anything internet-related, it seems more often than not that sense is anything but common...