Flying To the US? Pay In Cash 452
pin_gween writes to point us to a report in the Telegraph that British travelers using a credit card to purchase their ticket may now have their credit card and email accounts inspected by US authorities. This has been true since October, when the US and the EU agreed about what information the US could demand from airlines and how this information would be handled. But details of the agreement only recently came to light following a Freedom of Information request. The US says it will "encourage" US carriers to reciprocate to any requests by European governments. From the article: "[T]he Americans are entitled to 34 separate pieces of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data... Initially, such material could be inspected for seven days but a reduced number of US officials could view it for three and a half years. Should any record be inspected during this period, the file could remain open for eight years...'It is pretty horrendous, particularly when you couple it with our one-sided extradition arrangements with the US,' said [a human rights activist]. 'It is making the act of buying a ticket a gateway to a host of personal email and financial information. While there are safeguards, it appears you would have to go to a US court to assert your rights.'"
Better yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Mutual legal assistance (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing is going to be "inspected" by US authorities, and if anything is "inspected", it's not at-will and not arbitrary.
This is an agreement for mutual legal assistance, and is a framework for submitting legal requests and subpoenas for information about an individual via established legal channels, as well as guidelines information to which US authorities are entitled from EU air carriers.
No one automatically has access to bank records or email accounts; a legal request must still be made to a bank or internet provider. This is a framework for making such requests to EU entities by the US.
Things like email address and forms of payment are part of the almost-two-decade-old Automated Targeting System [wikipedia.org] (ATS), which uses metrics to attempt to determine in an automated fashion when an individual warrants further scrutiny. This is part of larger ongoing efforts to secure the information assessed by ATS.
If an email address is available, it is part of that set of information, among numerous other pieces of information. If something triggers an additional investigation, a legal request could, for example, be made to an internet service provider for the contents of an email account. Note that this is a court-ordered action, and not unlike a similar request that could be made by US authorities to a US company or entity; the difference, again, is that there is now a mechanism for the US uniformly making and EU entities responding to such requests.
TO our european friends (Score:5, Insightful)
Pay in cash, get a cavity search (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mutual legal assistance (Score:3, Insightful)
Sort of like how telephone calls can be monitored only if certain procedures are followed
Flying to US? Take off your tin foil hat. (Score:4, Insightful)
Additionally, most credit cards provide with additional lost luggage and life insurance when you use them to buy your ticket.
Places to avoid (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK (Score:5, Insightful)
p.s. For all you knuckleheads out there, I am not agreeing with this move! I'm only commenting on the irony of the UK bitching about it.
privacy? What privacy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Agree - Don't like the requirements, stay home (Score:3, Insightful)
Now some of the government responses, both US and UK, have been very onerous. (Connected through Heathrow lately???)
I for one will not let the threat of terrorism stop me from travelling. And if I'm travelling internationally, I fully expect that in exchange for entry to another country, I'll have to forgoe privacy, etc. It's part of the trade for living in the modern world.
How many people who don't like these kinds of broad-band searches think that targeting/profiling is more acceptable?
dave
Re:Agree - Don't like the requirements, stay home (Score:3, Insightful)
And it wasn't before 2001? Sure, there were hijackings, but nothing like 9/11! And something like 9/11 won't ever happen again - on 9/11 the passengers were complacent because they thought that it was a regular hijacking for ransom or transportation abroad - now that people remember 9/11, the next person to attempt to hijack a US plane will be beat to a bleeding crying pulp before the plane ever lands. Look at Richard "shoebomber" Reid - apart from getting arrested, he wasn't in quite the same condition at takeoff as at landing.
-b.
Re:Better yet (Score:3, Insightful)
commonly voiced opinion but I disagree. Every person has some right to privacy. I find paying by creditcard no valid reason to invade that.
Workaround? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:TO our european friends (Score:5, Insightful)
Knee-jerkers like you always leave off the most important qualifier when talking about "taking precautions" - namely that of effectiveness. All the data-mining in the world won't stop terrorism because the characteristics that you can mine for produce way too many false positives to be effective.
Then realize that airplanes aren't the only possible target [cnn.com] and that if you really want to apply these useless data-mining techniques to protecting all possible targets, we will have to go way past that dictionary definition of fascism to pull it off.
Re:Better yet (Score:5, Insightful)
*No offence meant, the US has it's merits and is unique in it's own way, but American culture is very different from European culture; When some one says "American culture", my first thought is of McDonalds if some one talks about "European culture" I think of the Renaissance. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just a very different one. As for History, this link sums up my thoughts: http://www.fatbadgers.co.uk/Britain/old.htm [fatbadgers.co.uk]
Midwest votes, not dollars. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dollars speak louder than anything else.
No they don't. Votes do. And more specifically, votes in the middle of the country.
Whoever brings home the most bacon and has "good old American [Christian] [family] values", gets votes. In the midwest, the government works for you. Everywhere else, you work for the government. The south is much of the same- the Tennessee Valley Authority? West and Northeast tax dollars giving southerners cheap electricity. Air conditioning is a luxury: heat in the wintertime in the northeast IS NOT. Guess what happened last year? Republicans drastically cut fuel assistance programs in the northeast.
The majority of midwestern voters are ignorant and uneducated (especially in civics issues). Come election time, they don't give a damn about anything outside their town, or anyone except themselves and their family. Most of the reason they're all pissed off about the Iraq war now is because their sons and daughters are coming home in body bags. It has nothing to do with the fact that we arrogantly invaded a sovereign nation plunging it into a civil war...
Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Demonstrably FALSE (Score:0, Insightful)
They were ALL MUSLIMS.
In addition, many had traveled to Pakistan to take place in jihad training in the various madrassas in places controlled by Al Qaeda and the Taliban (namely, Waziristan).
Someone who's credit card history has charges related to travel to Pakistan should be a RED FLAG demanding intense scrutiny.
Considering that MI 5 head and Sir Ian Blair (Metropolitan Police Head) have estimated that Al Qaeda has about 12,000 active jihadis and a hard core set of supporters in the 200,000 range or so, this is a serious issue. Particularly "Western looking" Muslims recruited to generate mass casualty terror plots.
Make no mistake. Muslim jihadis aim to kill you. Thereby sending the central message of Islam: submit to Islam or die. The death sentence on Rushdie, the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh, the plots against the Danish cartoonists, Israeli civilians, Jews in Buenos Aires, New Yorkers and others on 9/11, Madrid and London commuters, and Thai New Year's Eve celebrants in Bangkok are all part of the same global movement by Islam which can't succeed in the modern world and therefore wants to destroy it.
It will continue long after GWB is gone.
Given the ease in which various chemical and nuclear weapons can be used (imagine Sarin or an aerosol Polonium spray in the NYC subways) this threat is not trivial.
Giving Pakistan connected Brits intense scrutiny may well save not just thousands but tens of thousands of lives. Potentially from Litivenko's horrible death. Checking their credit card history is a sound practice. Those that object can visit elsewhere. Perhaps Iran's Holocaust Denial fest might be more their liking.
[More proof if needed on the general lack of reality comprehension skills and emotional immaturity of the average slashdot reader can be seen in the comments putting other nation's perceptions above physical safety from horrible deaths plotted by British jihadis]
What is the limit ? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is outrageous enough, but who knows what will be asked next ?
My DNA sample ? AIDS test ? My last choice to the last national elections ? If I have non-"acceptable" friends or lectures ?
How far will the Privacy Right be crushed, just to satisfy the US paranoia ?
Concerning the "don't like the rules, don't come here" comments, how would YOU feel if you were asked such private questions by, say, any north-African airlines ?
And if I'm *required* to fly to the US for work, must I lose my job to keep my private life by refusing to comply ?
Re:Midwest votes, not dollars. (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't. Votes do.
You are absolutely correct.
Now you go off the deep end. As someone who has lived in dense urban areas of the east coast and the west coast I can testify that there is no shortage of dumb-ass sheep showing up at the polls, there is no shortage of pork projects (civil and military), etc. You merely seem to prefer your sheep of one political orientation over the other. Secondly, you seem woefully ignorant when discussing strategic military issues. Your suggestion that putting military assets in the middle of the country has no strategic value is nonsensical. The center of a nation *is* a strategic point, coastal assets are far more vulnerable. Finally, while pork projects certainly do exists bases in the midwest are not inherently pork. Coastal land has always been far more expensive to acquire, and selling such expensive land and relocating to inexpensive land makes financial sense. I'd say some local bases have stayed in coastal states as pork. In short, I think the pork is fairly evenly distributed across the nation.
Re:Better yet (Score:3, Insightful)
When I think of American culture, I think of Manhattan, probably because I grew up on Long Island. I love Manhattan for the open-air markets, the theaters (and Shakespeare in the Park), the diverse restaurants, the museums (MOMA, Guggenheim, Museum of Natural History), Chinatown, the musicians in the subway stations and on the street, the people I meet in Union Square, etc. I could say many of the same things about New Orleans, which has its own unique flavor. Europe packs more cultural diversity into a few hundred square miles than we have in the entire US, and adds centuries of history wherever you go.
Re:Better yet (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a very common misconception amongst Europeans, that American culture doesn't exist beyond Walmart, McDonalds, and the Simpsons. Your statement is highly misleading because it looks at current American consumer companies while contrasting that to one of European history. For American culture in comparison to your European Renaissance comment, for example, you could consider the allure of the Wild West ("Cowboys & Indians", Dodge City and Boot Hill, railroads in the great westward expansion, etc).
If you really want to consider American culture, how about American music (jazz, blues, country/western, bluegrass, soul, rap, hip-hop). And of course important American influences on rock&roll. How about American dance forms, which deviated from the formal ballroom dances of Europe with 'street dancing' (eg Swing in NYC in the 20's). And also American contributions (eg in Miami, NYC, and Puerto Rico) to Salsa and other Latin dance and musical styles. How about American contributions to literature, considering these American Nobel Laureates [yahoo.com] in literature.
And of course there's a whole world of culture in the conflicts in American history. For example, with slavery and the Civil War, and the continuing struggle for Civil Rights including Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the whole associated musical/dance/literary/art culture with this (eg, I'd highly recomend seeing Sweet Honey in the Rock [wikipedia.org] if you get a chance).
I could go on and on. But long story short, anybody claiming that American culture doesn't exist is exhibiting an unfortunate ignorance which ironically is a common stereotype of how unworldly Americans are these days.
Re:sounds good (Score:3, Insightful)
What else were you doing? (Score:3, Insightful)
That aside, you sound like exactly the kind of jackass that would provoke a police officer into arresting you by being nelligerent for absolutley no reason.
What's the real story?
Oh yeah, and I;ve never seen European police go unneccessarily ballistic.
Re:Better yet (Score:4, Insightful)
As I said, no disrespect was meant I was just trying to point out I have so much on my "doorstep", that I'd never see it all, so why should I spend my tourist ££s in the USA if I'm going to be treated like a suspect before I even get into the country. The US needs people like me to spend money there; I don't need to spend my money in the US.
Re:Flying to US? Take off your tin foil hat. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell that to Mahad Arar.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/10/tortur
Re:Better yet (Score:2, Insightful)
FWIW I'm a Londoner, now living in California, and I'm no americaphile.
Re:Better yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's take this a step further. There are places in South and Central America that are safe and closer to many in the United States. Yet many in the US still prefer to take the European vacation. Why? The European vacation just seems more normal.
So lets put it another way. Much of this has been a form of isolationism. We are pretty secure in our little country, and when things start to get a bit dicey, we have a tendency to close off those borders. Most times we are protected from this overreaction because it does cost money, and as much as conservatives are fearful, they also like to make money. But sometimes the overreaction happens, and it costs us. For instance, we now require passports where they were not required previously, even though lack of passports was not an issue in the antecedent events. The passport office does not really have the funding to deal with the additional work, which means that our passports will become less secure. So we implemented a policy that will likely reduce security. Likewise, the more we check on every passenger, not only does it deter legitimate travel, it also creates a system that encourages costly bureacracy without providing additional benifits. I mean none of these advanced systems are needed to cath people with certain last names or people who believe that prayer to god is an important part of life, which is so American that many megachurches advacate praying before trips, important financial transactions, and even meetings.
In the end, the isolationist simply don't want interactions with the other. We can have illigal immigrant labor as long as we don't have to see, feed, house, treat, or education them. Anyone who is willing to be strip searched is free to come for a visit, but we don't need them.
The sad thing is that instead of letting the no longer needed airlines fail, the isolationist are asking for billions of dollars to subsidize them.
Re:TO our european friends (Score:2, Insightful)
The mere fact that you openly declared "war on terror", formed the "coalition of the willing", invaded a sovereign country which had nothing to do with New York (but has oil, of course), the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, your declaring that international law does not apply to your freedom fighters against the axis of evil, so all that what you've done while delivering us from the evil was itself the proof that you lost that war too.
The war on (or possibly more aptly of) terror did not decrease the terrorist threat, it actually increased it because there are a lot more people who despise America than before. Incidentally it also increased the wealth a few people and their control over your society back at home, but of course that should not give us strange ideas about their motivations.
Nevertheless, you eroded and still eroding day after day the very democracy you so fervently try to force on to other nations, all in the name of fighting terrorism - the terrorist couldn't be happier.
As per fascism, it is not so far fetched. Here is a short fragment of what Wikipedia says about it:
"Many different characteristics are attributed to fascism by different scholars, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, anti-liberalism, and anti-communism."
Nationalism? Check. Authoritarianism? More and more. Militarism? Check. Corporatism? Double check. Anti-liberalism? Not yet, although there are attempts. Anti-communism? Triple check. You may not be there yet, but you are definitely heading to the right direction.
As per the solution for the European problem when those real nasty people wanted to take over the world, well, you were not part of the whole thing until Japan attacked you - before that you were happily doing business with those real nasty people. Now there were other really nasty people east of these nasty people and it seemed that the eastern nasty people do not mind sacrificing 20 million people to win over the western nasty people and thus turning most of Europe to a very disturbing colour indeed. So it seemed like a good investment to send a few hundred thousand people to prevent that, while in the same time gaining a lot of influence in Europe (most of which remained the desired colour).
No, they do not forget. They remeber all too well. Europe knows a lot more about wars than you do - since the Civil War, when you were fighting against yourself, you heven't had war on your soil. Europe knows what living in war means. Europeans don't have to watch epic Hollywood films to learn about it, it is enough if they ask their grandparents or often just their parents. People who lived through war tend to remember.
No. Don't pay in cash (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably not a good idea to pay cash (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Because it's different from the norm (most people like the convenience and safeguards that credit-card payments provide), and paying cash makes it more difficult to dig up information on you. And incidentally, since 9 out of 10 credit-card companies have their head office in the US, I suspect that all your European credit card transactions will be as accessible to the US authorities as those of US citizins.
So ... in all those bookings you'll have a mass of people who pay by credit-card, some who are in large accounts, some who purchase their tickets through a travel agency. All neat and traceable. And then you have a few percent who pay cash at the counter. Who would you pay special attention to?
It just seems so blindingly obvious that if you were tasked with screening people that you would pay special attention to anyone who seemed to be willing to go to some trouble (by paying cash) to be less easily traced. Although it's not probable that screeners will devote a lot of attention to everyone (screeners probably have a finite amount of resources), if your software can trace someone's credit card (and check where, when, and how the card has or hasn't been used over say the past 5 years ...), you will know a fair amount about the holder (ideally) and you may green-flag that person if nothing suspicious turns up. Just to try and boil down the list of passengers a little, and spend more time with the rest.
After all ... you don't *really* care if someone slips though to raise mayhem ... it's enough if you can show your boss that *you* did your job. And that's a lot easier to prove when someone slips through your computer thought it knew all about than someone it couldn't trace very well, right? So, I'd guess (but that's just a guess on my part) that this screening program contains a line like:
"If Cash_Payment(passenger) Then Raise_Yellow_Flag(passenger)".
Re:sounds good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sounds good (Score:3, Insightful)
Or any other southwestern border state who is being overrun by illegals, and putting such a burden on the social infrastructure...schools, welfare, medical system....
Those tax paying citizens there are paying the price...at least that's what I hear from friends living there...
Just stop going to the UFS of A. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fingerprints aside, the fact that you can't lock your luggage (or get the locks smashed by luggage manhandlers) is enough of a deterrent not to go to the US.
Freedom for the people? Hmmm let's see...
0. Torture, indefinite detention and abuse? Check.
1. Warrantless wiretapping, reading your emails? Check
2. The authority to detain and arrest anyone at any place without charge? Check.
3. Freedom of speech squashed? Check.
4. The feds can bust into your house at any time and seize anything they like? Probably put you in the slammer as well? Check.
5. Speak against the republicans and get your ass busted in 15 minutes? Check.
6. No fly list? Check.
7. Tasers for anyone who has the balls to stand up for themselves? Check.
8. One totally brainf***ed legal system? Check.
No thanks, I will pass. The last time I visited the US on "pleasure" was in 1999.
Re:Europeans: Come to Canada instead (Score:1, Insightful)
We Need a Zombie-Version of Gerald Ford.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Better yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Silly? Yes. As is this whole penis-size contest.
Re:Better yet (Score:3, Insightful)
"Or are you talking about more recently? I still see reports of how much we are spending in Iraq. I have yet to see any profit reports come out. Wait, did we sell all that purple ink to the polling places? Are those women attending school in Afghanistan going to send us a check? Where is the profit?"
Don't be an idiot. The profit is for Halliburton and other companies "rebuilding" Iraq. It's being paid for partly by Iraqi oil, but mostly by the American taxpayer. The whole war was basically a big excuse to enrich Bush's corporate buddies.
None of the profit Halliburton is making is paid for by Iraqis. The US is not making a profit here because all of the costs are paid for by the US, not anyone else. As for Iraqi oil, where's the beef? I haven't seen a drop of it; the Iraqi oil still isn't flowing because the insurgents keep sabotaging the oil facilities and pipelines. It would be nice if there was some oil coming in from Iraq because it would mean profits for Iraqis (which would help their country both because of revenue and jobs created) and hopefully lower fuel prices for everyone else.