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American Airlines Information Gathering
matt-fu writes "Cory Doctorow posted a story on boingboing.net this morning describing a recent hassle while flying American Airlines. It seems that since he was traveling from the UK to the US with a Canadian passport, he was actually asked to give out the names and addresses of everyone he would be staying with in the US! He has written an open letter to AA in response. Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?"
I lived in London for a year while in college. I had a friend come over to visit. He filled out his landing card and couldn't remember what college I went to. The UK immigration officials pulled him aside, tore through his bags. They asked him a bunch of questions about his employment, schooling and also questions about me.
Then they paged me in the airport and asked me the same questions to see if he was lying.
PS, this was in 99, long before 9/11.
This isn't new, this is someone overreacting and blaming everything on Bush and bashing the US
What a freaking asshat. They have been doing this for many, many years. And it isn't just AA or the US govt; it is all countries I've been to and on all airlines.
It can be used for many purposes, from emergency contact info (very useful when I was in India around the time of 9/11) to verifying that you are going to leave the country when you say or locating you to get lost luggage.
This dork needs to read a little bit before opening his big keyboard, and the editors need to do some research before posting such a stupid story.
IANAL, but I play one on
that's surprising, actually.
... and the cops are not allowed to check if you are legal or not, even if you are convicted of a felony.)
The way things are, at least here in CA, you are treated like a king if you are Mexican. Especially if you can prove your illegal status.
Already illegal immigrants from Mexico can get free tuition to California public universities, we're working on giving them free driver's licenses, we're working on giving them free health insurance (we already provide free school (up through High School), free medical care (provided you go to the E.R.), free food, free crappy housing or subsidized decent housing,
Bah, that Statue of Liberty thing was just a French plot to weaken the country. Thank God that many years later, the current administration has uncovered the plot and discovered that the French are our true enemy.