[quote]But seriously. Is the US the only gov. to do this? Or is the US gov. the only one to talk about it openly?
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Yes. I can say with certainty that the US is the only government which looks into foreign travellers details as European and British law stipulates that the privacy rights of the passengers are protected, regardless of whatever country they are travelling from or from whichever country they actually belong to.
The only passengers that will be looked into are those that are suspected of being involved with terrorism or serious crime, those with intelligence markers or those which are known to have been involved in or have connexions with terrorist/serious crimes, which, in my opinion is fair and square.
What is not fair is penalising normal people who have nothing to do with criminals or terrorism at all and then holding their information on databases for indefinate periods. It is quite reasonable to assume that this information will be passed on to third parties to build up other intelligence databases and to third parties for profiling, as per what is currently happening with the database of foriegn fingerprints US authorities promised they would not pass on, but have and are doing so right at this present time.
Meanwhile when all this is going on and as innocent, normal law abiding citizens are travelling to the US, terrorists with more than half a brain will be coming in to the States across the Canadian border where there are not the same restrictions in place; or across the Mexican border where it is a piece of piss to sneak across, get on a domestic flight (like those used to down the twin towers by American-trained pilots) with false docs and do the same.
If the US authorities put half as money and effort into actually chasing up terrorists, liasing with foreign intelligence and actually targeting the correct people as they do pissing off other countries, making it difficult and tiresome for travellers and generally buffooning around making themselves look like incompetent pricks chasing their tails with inneffective policies, then they might actually get somewhere with the war on terrorism.
The reality is that the US is losing respect from the people and governments of the countries who are trying their level best to help them with their problem which was largely caused by the US’ own arrogance and behaviour to other countries in the first place.
It also doesn’t cross the mind of the bigwigs in the inteeligence agencies that the more restrictions that are placed on air travel from abroad, the greater the threat of home grown terrorism will be from within the US.
[quote]Says the person who comes from the country with by far the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world, some of which in a literally Orwellian sense can talk to people.
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So what’s your point? It’s one thing having your own country pry into your personal life everyday, but a jumped up, arrogant arsehole government of a foreing country doing it is just taking the piss. I’m not a US citizen and although I was born there, have absolutely no intention of ever becoming one, Ever. And seeing as I am not a US citizen, the US has no right to any of my personal information unless I commit an offence.
The various travel agencies I have flown with have never asked for any other information bar contact details. I have always paid in cash. They have always issued tickets. Method of payment is between myself and the company and is none of the governments business.
Also, because of bad debt, many people cannot apply for a credit card and have to pay cash to go on holiday. I’d wager that between 30 - 50% of tickets are paid for by businesses or host businesses in the US for business travel and the transaction has absolutely nothing to do with the traveller in question.
Again, another half baked, ill thought through policy the US has come up with. If anyone can tell me what concrete advantages this policy will have on counter terrorism within the United States, please tell…