Slashdot Mirror
Congress Considers Forcing Travel Registration
macduffman writes "Congress and the Department of Homeland Security are considering several new visa restrictions, including forcing some foreign travelers to register their travel plans online 48 hours in advance. Business advocacy groups are worried about both foreign relations and the economic impact of such legislation, while privacy concerns see this as another possible 'in' for identity thieves. From the article: 'Along with online registration, the updated program would require new and existing member countries to improve data-sharing; more rigorously report lost and stolen passports (not just blank passports); and guarantee they will repatriate nationals if those people are ordered out of the United States. "It's really a 21st-century model," said James Carafano, a Heritage Foundation analyst who specializes in homeland security. "It'll all be done electronically and biometrically. And it really doesn't compromise your privacy."'"
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Sooner or later, this will be applied to ordinary citizens, as well.
"I'm sorry, sir, but you didn't register your travel plans to go from Oakland to San Francisco."
"But my wife's having a baby and that's the nearest hospital!"
"Then where is the BABY's travel registration."
There are figures that your economy is losing out in the magnitude of tens of billion dollars due to decreased tourism to the USA because of stupid procedures. I know that I'm not willing to go to the USA as long as I'm treated as a criminal and I'm not alone with that sentiment.
These new plans are just bound to make it worse.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Ah, I forgot, the sub-human foreign travelers. Nice. My Japanese citizen wife and mother of my son will really appreciate your point.
from TFA: Paragraph 2:
The requirement, proposed by the Homeland Security Department...
Pass the tomatoes.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Visiting the usa again got less desire-able. No i don't think i will be doing that conference in the US this year again.
While i respect the feeling that getting blown up by saudi arabian (bin g. w. bush relative) is a valid fud for the american public i don't like the aspect that all 'aliens' go to America to cause trouble.
I'm not of middle eastern origin etc but I'd still rather not visit. A thing in a national newspaper in england recently from a Journalist said that even stopping in america to jump on another plane (two hour stop-over) at Miami was the pits.
Republicans seeking tax cuts might like to know that the tourist promotions e.g. 'visit usa' might be got rid of on the basis that america it seems does not really like the concept of 'short term visitors*'
* a month or less.
Je ne parle pas francais.
In Russia's old-fashioned system, as an American I have to register my travel in Russia as I travel. But in the USSA they're going to require 48 hours advance notice. What an improvement.
Growing up, I graduated highschool in 1992. I was fed a whole bunch of crap about how the 'bad soviets spy on their people' and the 'bad soviets imprison people with no chance of trial' and 'bad soviets take their peoples' rights and tell them it's for security'/
Exactly. When I was a kid the USSR was bad because of all those things they did, and the USA was great because we didn't do any of those things.
At some point, I'm not sure when, it no longer became about what we did The USA was just magically the best no matter what simply because it's the USA. I think maybe it happened around the same time you started seeing those bumper stickers with the flag and "The Power of Pride". Because apparently if you just believe that your country is super-awesome, it will do great things. Via magic.
How are pride and wishful thinking working out for us in Iraq? Maybe if I just have more pride we'll win...
BTW, someone needs to mod the OP up some more, because that was hilarious.
The enemies of Democracy are
Scientists don't want to come to conferences. Families don't want to go to Disney World.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_i
Are we safer? There's no data to prove it. Are innocent people suffering? Yes. Even Senator Kennedy got on the no-fly list.
It's stupid. It's costing us jobs. It's costing us the liberty our fathers died to preserve.
* Non-US Citizens have never (as in, "ever") enjoyed the full protection of US law (save for illegal immigrants, but that's a whole other argument, as we're talking only ostensibly here).
Right, mostly because we made forced internment camps and whatnot as knee-jerk reactions in times of war. While true, that doesn't mean it's a good idea, or even that it was legal.
I mean, if you were talking about, say, welfare rights or something, I could understand why foreigners don't get those. When we're talking about human rights (freedom of association, a 1st amendment right), or habeas corpus and due process, I get a lot less agreeable about denying them to anyone. Even denying them to the damn terrorists, who I'd like to gut with a rusty spoon for having caused all this crap.
I really, really am not going to agree with anyone who wants to create a class of 2nd class people in our legal justice system.
* Proposed? Great - so what branch of government is DHS again, and when did they get to create/codify law?
It's usually better to object before a bill gets voted on than after. As for when they got to create law, I don't know, but they seem to have a great record of ignoring it when convenient. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the courts constantly trying to coerce the DoJ into following silly anachronisms like the due process clause of the US Constitution.
I travelled around the world in April. The US was the only country I passed through (and I was only transiting through - I never went outside the airports) that wanted to photograph and fingerprint me, and my wife and *children*. And I am an Australian of British ancestry - a more WASP-ish Australian family you could not find. Not a group of people given to terrorist attacks on America.
Many of the countries I visited didn't even look at my passport (*cough* *cough* Europe) - I just drove straight over the borders quite legally and kept going (rather like an American crossing state borders). We even flew in and out of a one-party police state that treated us better as transit passengers than the Americans did. And as for New Zealand, which we visited in January 2006, they practically invited us to stay, get a house, a job and live there - no forms, applications or visas required. We had an automatic right to stay as long as we liked, and even settle there. Most hospitable and friendly and welcoming.
America is the only place I have visited that treated me like a person being charged with an offence (that is what I would have to do in Australia to be fingerprinted).
So about these other countries that you reckon behave like America: they are obviously not Europe or the UK or Australia, are they? China? North Korea? Iran? Is that who you are emulating?
I am anarch of all I survey.