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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?
Just watch, I predict:
TSA: "no sir, we cannot allow you back into the US -- we have no record of you leaving."
You: "but i did register, here is the printout of the confirmation page"
TSA: "sorry sir, its not in the computer."
Other predictions: such predicaments happen more often to Arabs, Muslims, minorities, and members of the ACLU
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."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Vhere are your papers?
Spectacular. In the 20th century, of course, that sort of thing was the opposite of "not compromising your privacy", and the sort of thing we used to think of as the domain of the Soviet Union.
But in Newspeak, we have the advantages of doublethink and duckspeak, and it no longer feels as weird. Thus: "20thinkers unbellyfeel Amsoc. 21thinkers bellyfell Amsoc! Carafano doubleplusgood HomeSec doublethinking duckspeaker!"
Speaking of the Soviet Union, from TFA:
> Applicant countries say U.S. officials are living in the past if they are worried about a flood of East Europeans entering - and not leaving.
>
> "Many people in the U.S. seem to believe it is a natural instinct of every Pole, Hungarian or Slovak to want to stay in the U.S.," Reiter said. "This is totally wrong today."
No Newspeak translation available:
"In Soviet Russia, people fleeing from tyranny wanted to stay in America!"
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.
Be sure they note when citizens travel to unfriendly places and seek to return. Declaration of someone as an "enemy combatant" is effectively the same as revoking someone's citizenship, even a natural-born citizen.
Yakov Smirnov should update his act: "American Express: Don't Leave Home."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
"It'll all be done electronically and biometrically. And it really doesn't compromise your privacy."
Someone should shoot these people that come up with these concoctions for security solutions. Need to fly last minute to Toronto or vice versa sorry you didn't schedule it 48 hours in advance so you must be a terrorist. Give me a damn break. Then don't get me started on his convoluted assertion that it doesn't open people up to invasions of privacy or identity theft. Every additional time you have to transmit your information, every additional database with your information, every additional set of eyes that gets to look at your information is just another spot in the chain at which point information can be stolen and/or misused. We should send this guy through dressed as an Arab with a head scarf a few times and see how he feels after getting a few rectal exams for foreign objects and the verbal abuse at every stage along the way that 'suspicious' people take.
Contrary to what Bush thinks the terrorist did succeed in setting into motion the process of destroying our freedoms that this country used to stand for. After that we should put his personal information up on the bulletin board at the post office for everyone to see and ask him how he feels after someone empties out his bank accounts and owes thousands of dollars in back taxes.
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'/
How ironic that those adults who were so frothy about the USSR==bad and USA==good based on those claims, are now supporting the use of those tactics in the USA!
I asked a few of them to explain the contradiction. They said that it's better to be safe than sorry! How funny!
Blar.
Oh! Foreigners! Well, that's all right, then!
I guess we won't be needing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then. Silly thing says all humans are created equal. And Article 13, the part about freedom of movement, is clearly a quaint antique, a relic of a bygone era when Americans actually cared about others.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Yeah, this was a requirement for visiting the old communist countries, wasn't it? And that was the differentiating factor between the 'free' countries and the rest of the world. Whats next? Secret police and wiretaps without warrants? Prison sentences without trial? Gulags? oh wait..
You need an "electronic visa" to get in.
Try leaving Japan sometime. They charge to leave.
The US so far hasn't been doing much in this area and it certainly high time we start. $1 entrance fee would easily pay for lots and lots of border inspectors.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Me, last year I had an invite to go to the US - I've never been but would truly like to go - but was in two minds because it overlapped with something else - and after taking a look at what it might involve in terms of proving I'm not a terrorist (I have an old-fashioned paper passport) I gave it a miss.
And purleease, when I fly long-haul I like to take a big bottle of water to stop me dehydrating. A effing bottle of HO for chrissake. Whaddy think I'm gonna do with it, split out the hydrogen and ignite it? Yet I can buy a bottle of whisky at the duty free.
(sorry about the rant, feel free to mod me down, but I have to get it out of my system before I go on a rampage on my next flight).
I have just one thing to say:
"Papers, please."
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.
This would be even more restrictive than it used to be travelling to East Germany, which was not really fun either. I feel less and less a free human who can move around this world, that i was born into, freely. Just when you thought it couldn't get much worse (so soon!)...
Something I've always admired about Brazil: they have a policy of reciprocity that makes it just as big a pain in the ass for Americans to go to Brazil as it is for Brazilians to go to America.
Some international academic organizations that I'm involved with, which move their conferences from one country to another, have begun skipping the US and choosing to host their North American conferences in Canada instead. I expect this trend to continue: I'm going to encourage conferences in Brazil.
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.
Wow, I'm convinced. Sign me up.
But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.
Ronald Reagan
Farewell Address to the Nation
Oval Office
January 11, 1989
Amazing how far the Republican Party has moved in 18 years.
Also, it's not as if we'd be the first to implement such a plan in either case.
You are right! All those nice communist countries used to have very similar system in place.
AccountKiller
* Not to be confused with the Privileges and Immunities Clause from Article IV.
** For those of you paying very close attention, the doctrine was revived in obiter dicta, at least insofar as it applies to travel between the States. Still, even under the rationale of the Slaughterhouse Cases, I think it likely that the Court would find this a fundamental right. Of course, we won't know for sure until and unless the law is passed and a case tried...
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
I'd just like to point out as an American living in China I've never been required to tell the government where I plan to travel other than to tell them where I work, but that was only to get my visa. When I want to go on trips I just take off. I've never had a waiting period to buy plane or train tickets.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
If we just ask the terrorists where they will be staying and what their plans are, we will have no difficulties thwarting their plans. These are pious folk - they wouldn't lie.
Anytime you see the word "really" in a statment like that, I find it generally to be false. "I really didn't think it tasted that bad.", "I really wanted to help that homeless person but all I had was a 5.", or "I really didn't mean to be rude but I was just really pissed off." You get the point.
* 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.
And some people in America wonder why so many people in other countries don't like America. Get a clue. You think treating people from other countries like shit doesn't affect Americans. There are many other countries as free as America... and now-a-days, certainly many are more free. So this B.S. that terrorists attack America because they don't like freedom is just that, bullshit. Why not practice some of that Christian philosophy that President Wanker professes to espouse: do onto other as you would have them do unto you. The practice of screw everyone for the money sure hasn't worked for your safety has it? And if you are going to say how safe the country has been with the new stasi... there were more Americans killed by American terrorists against Americans (Oklahoma City) than by foreign terrorists in the ten years before 9/11. Meanwhile there have been more than 3000 killed since. And those were killed by the actions of another American: the president. I happen to know that there are many Americans who don't share your view. It is why I think there is still hope for the country.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I traveled to China last year. I talked to people there that tried to buy things from companies in the US but were unable to go to the US. They bought from Europe instead. One of the largest makers of networking gear got that way because the prices on US produced gear was high, and the import/export restrictions pretty much made it illegal to sell many versions of the products in foreign countries (encryption and such). The business travelers can't get in. The US sets up artificial barriers to prevent foreigners from buying US made gear. The end result is that money just flows out of the US, increasing the trade deficit and harming domestic companies. It just seems like such moves are economic suicide. I can't understand why we continue hurt ourselves with our immigration policies.
Learn to love Alaska
Rare risk and overreactions. A great article on human psychology and our "failures" inside our own brain: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0706.html
I am a US citizen, and I'm fairly enraged every time I return from abroad. In Europe or Japan, security, passport checks, and customs are typically quick and painless.
When returning to the US, you're typically screwing around for at least an hour. If you're a US citizen. Processing of foreigners takes longer, and is very similar to in-processing at a county jail. I wonder how many visitors think they've been arrested when they get here? I wonder whether entering the Soviet Union was ever so ridiculous.
Most people don't even think inside the box.
If it's so basic, could you please show me the part of the Constitution where it says that all this stuff only applies to citizens? It would clear up a great deal of confusion and I would be much obliged.
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.
Ironically once you are in this situation the only way out is to be deported to a country with a proper rule of law so that you can gain access to the courts to prove that you are a citizen and then legally return, with 48 hours notice of course ;).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Better check your math....
9/11 official death toll: 2,793
vs.
Pearl Harbor death toll: 2,403
OKC death toll: 168
Iraq death toll to date: 3,466 (US military), 276 (other coalition military), 917 (contractors), 102 (journalists), 39 (media support workers), 88 (aid workers)
Even without counting Iraqi deaths (estimates run from 68,000 up to 655,000), you are off by more than half.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Stasi != Gestapo.
Stasi; short for Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit; translated: Department of State/Homeland Security. Existed in the former communist East Germany and encouraged spying on all the individuals by individuals.
Gestapo = acronymn for 'GEheime STAats POlizei' - Secret State Police. This was under the Third Reich.
"so what branch of government is DHS again"
It's part of the Executive branch.
"and when did they get to create/codify law?"
DHS has extensive rule-making authority. These rules have the force of law. You seem to be implying that these rules won't become legal requirements without action by Congress. In this, you are incorrect.
As far as who deserves to have their rights protected, everyone vs. just citizens, I think Jefferson addressed that better than I could.
Your expression "just out of the protective reach of civilization and into something a bit terrifying" might be a bit apt indeed... .. speaking as a white 40 year old university researcher, a British guy whose lifetime criminal record is one parking ticket I guess I should have nothing to fear about your customs officers. Nevertheless your procedures and government rhetoric conspire to make the whole process slightly nerve wracking and cumbersome enough that I tend not to apply to attend conferences in the USA, and psychologically feel the idea of coming to visit my friend in Boston to be a much bigger deal than seeing my friends in Cambodia.
You guys have told the world you maintain the right to disappear anybody you want, keep them out of contact with anybody else as long as you want, and if you really want to turn the screws on them, you are happy to ghost them off to a third country where you'll torture them. This is a bit frightening. It does put me on edge that I am visiting a country that considers this activity legitimate and is in 'siege mentality'. You just never know if the authorities might just lash out and do something scary and irrational to you too. And as you note, there is the sense of entering a country which believes itself to be answerable to nobody but itself and can do what it wants when it wants and get away with it. Umm, easier just to give it a miss, go somewhere safer instead.