Congress Considers Forcing Travel Registration 321
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."'"
"It's really a 21st-centry model." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"It's really a 21st-centry model." (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish this all sounded more paranoid than probable.
Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Papers, please."
This is Side Five... (Score:2)
Obligatory obscure quote:
This is Side Five. Follow in your book and repeat after me as we learn three new words in Turkish: Towel, Bath, Border.... May I see your passport, Please.
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If they try to change that they'll have an instant revolution on their hands.
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I think the word apples extremely well to this piece of legislative insanity. Hell, virtually every civilization that has ever existed has rapidly discov
Re:"It's really a 21st-centry model." (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and like most police state tactics, it completely fails to address the actual problem they claim they are solving. Which is ultimately good for them, because the continuation of the problem justifies them taking even more power (that also won't solve the problem).
In case anyone dosen't remember, all of the 9/11 hijackers travelled with valid ID.
So now the hijackers will register their names two days in advance. BFD. They aren't going to use anyone on our known list of terrorists, they aren't going to use anyone who our pointless profiling picks up. They will be completely legal, record-free, and unknown to any law enforcement or intelligence agency. They will walk right through the security checkpoint, grumbling just as loud as the guy behind them about the inconvenience.
This shit is useful for catching Cat Stevens, providing a false sense of security, more power to the police state, and not a damn thing else.
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Re:"It's really a 21st-centry model." (Score:5, Interesting)
Any sufficiently long random string eventually includes the name of a terrorist.
If you give a bunch of monkeys typewriters, sooner or later they'll type "Osama bin Laden."
Now, maybe you can argue that the methodology being used to create and implement these lists is superior to that of giving typewriters to monkeys... or then again, maybe you can't.
Personally, I don't look forward to what I expect will be the eventual inevitable expansion of this program to include US citizens. I fly to about four continents a year, and go to US-friendly, popular-with-US-tourists places like Indonesia (CIA: the world's largest Muslim population) and Turkey (CIA: Muslim 99.8% (mostly Sunni)). Thus far I haven't developed much faith in DHS's ability to keep friends and foes straight.
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Digital Angel, here we come!
Russia's Old Fashioned (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'd wager that we're not quite as frustrating as Russia yet, at least from the point of view of EU citizens, but we're making good time.
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"Papiere, bitte" has become "Deine Ausweiskarte ablichten, bitte" (thanks, Google Translate!)
Only this time it'll be spoken in English.
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It's really a 21st century way of fucking your own tourist industry. Let's see, I can take a holiday in Spain, Italy wherever or I can submit all my personal information to a foreign government and apply in writing two days before departure risking deportation if the customs guy doesn't like my face. Tough choice......
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As far as the next president growing cajones.... One of the front runners right now.... well, need I say if they grew some LITER
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
from TFA: Paragraph 2:
The requirement, proposed by the Homeland Security Department...
Pass the tomatoes.
Oooh, that makes it sooo much better... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Oooh, that makes it sooo much better... (Score:5, Insightful)
hmmm I don't see any mention of citizenship there. The GP must not have read the writings that inspried our becoming "the US" or he would understand that those rights and protections under the law are granted to every one. Of course it took our country a long time to recogize that those rights (naturally) belong to blacks and women and gays. Maybe someday they will belong to foreigners too.
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
"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.
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
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."
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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 ;).
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
Oh! Foreigners! Well, that's all right, then!
I guess we won't be needing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [un.org], 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 [wikipedia.org].
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Australia charges for a visa as well.
Just because the US has been unbelievably lax does not mean it should continue.
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Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Some already do. *shrug*
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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You are right! All those nice communist countries used to have very similar system in place.
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
And what makes you think that so many Americans are clueless as the the worldwide resentment which has built up against them because of the actions of a certain executive in the White House? Why else is Mr. Bush's approval rating hovering around 30%? And while I would argue that there are really not any other nations more free than America (at least for citizens), I would certainly agree that the American government is acting very hypocritically on the subject of freedom, especially (as seen in TFA) toward
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]: 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.
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Umm, RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:"It's really a 21st-centry model." (Score:5, Interesting)
"Ministry of _____" [wikipedia.org] is 1984.
I can't imagine why you would be worried enough to post AC because you talked about the ex-USSR. You even got modded Informative and misquoted.
I'll grant that the GP is right about disbanding the DHLS. There is no question that this will end up being a pox on a "free society". You are also correct that the DHLS encompasses some of the powers [govexec.com] of the ex-KGB. With with torture camps in foreign countries and Halliburton building internment/containment camps within the continental US, there is no doubt that it's going to get worse before it gets better. The fact that you are too paranoid to talk about it in a public forum already speaks volumes about how far we've come in such a short time if you otherwise would have posted.
I'm not offering up conspiracy theories, I'm just watching what is happening around me. You have to admit, it's very odd.
Posting normally for obvious reasons.
My Prediction (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:My Prediction (Score:4, Interesting)
Now... coincidences can happen... but once you start flipping a coin a hundred times and every single flip is 'heads'... you're going to start to think something's not quite right about that coin.
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Apparently you were in a coma for the last seven years. Please check the news.
Like Predicting the Sun Rising in the East (Score:5, Insightful)
"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."
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Godwin (Score:4, Funny)
Newspeak and Doublethink (Score:5, Funny)
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!"
So funny... (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re:So funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:So funny... (Score:4, Insightful)
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'Sure, we reviled "them" when they did it, but "they" aren't "us", so when we do it, it's great!'
I fucking hate those flag waving morons.
I love the US because of the Constitution and the feeling that _all_ men (meaning people) are created equal, and should be given equal opportunities, not because I was born here.
I hate what we we've become in the last 6.5 years.
Tourism revenues (Score:5, Insightful)
These new plans are just bound to make it worse.
Re:Tourism revenues (Score:5, Insightful)
For such a secretive administration (Score:2)
Won't affect me ... (Score:2, Informative)
Unfortunately: the UK seems to be following the USA; maybe a new prime minister will have more of a mind of his own - but I suspect t
Local Travel Next? (Score:2)
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As a european.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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But i have to go there for my job, so i cant help it.
At least when i am there, in berkeley the facist police state isnt visible yet
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You are either a liar, or you haven't flown through LAX in a long time. Nobody who's ever transited the TBIT would ever write this.
LAX is a ridculously dysfunctional airport - easily the worst on the west coast.
-Isaac
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LAX is a ridculously dysfunctional airport - easily the worst on the west coast
Just went through there last month. It took me 30 minutes to retrieve my luggage, get through customs, and grab a seat in the gate are for my connection.
I've been through a lot... maybe I'm just good at it now.
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But if you define "us" as "bigot assholes", then i sincerely share the oppinion you claim the GP-poster had.
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Not entirely sure what that means. You can replace "your opinion of us" with "your opinion of the US".
I'm just tired of the posts that start "As a European..." or "As a Canadian..." and then go on to say how crap the US is. Especially when they are going to quote a damn article and not even their own experience!
It's crap in the US? Good for you. Go somewhere else where you do like it.
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The other thing which you left out is where you were coming from.
I recently took my first airline trip since 911, including travelling to Germany with a layover in Amsterdam both ways. The airport experiences including my short US domestic hop were horrible in the US compared to Amsterdam and Frankfurt. It's not bad enough to stop me from doing it again next year though.
I would think that y
They don't understand what data security is (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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Disappointed but not surprised (Score:2)
USSA (Score:2, Insightful)
Try visiting Australia (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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I just left Japan about a week ago, I was not charged. I do this annually and never been charged to leave. I am also a US citizen however.
Re:Try visiting Australia (Score:4, Informative)
Now if you want something identical here, why not attack the "gaijin card" ID they make all longterm foreigners get, now with mandatory fingerprinting. Even then, you weren't required to tell the government that you wanted to go visit Kyoto over the weekend... Sheesh.
I call Bullsh*t (Score:2)
I don't know if the man should be charged with high treason or criminal stupidity.
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"Shun the tyranny of the or and embrace the genius of the and."
I don't know who first said that, but he's brilliant.
Smoke Screen (Score:2)
Sorry if this sounds like a troll... (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
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It only took a month or so of this stupidity for TSA to realize how dumb it was. But of course, they can't completely roll it back -- that would be admitting they were wrong.
The "compromise" is really profitable for the airport vendors: you can buy
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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.
Out of interest, I've been warned by an immigration official in my own country to avoid travelling to the US because of the type of passport I have. That startled me.
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.
Be fair, now, it was the Brits that started the business of prohibiting water on aeroplanes, not the Americans. And it was they that forced it on the rest of the world (as the Americans so often do). Though, not that it matters where the paranoia originated, really. I just miss being able to go on domestic flights in my own country without
Dear Congress. (Score:2)
PS. Good luck ruling the world with a country full of illegal immigrants, mindless corporate automatons and military personnel. I think that's all you'll have left after the rest of us leave.
Where to travel? (Score:2, Insightful)
This nonsense is costing us jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:This nonsense is costing us jobs (Score:4, Funny)
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It's interesting that you mention that... this morning I was actually coming back to the US from a business trip to Mexico (which I had 24 hours notice of beforehand, but that's been discussed elsewhere by others). As I was waiting in line to have my passport checked, I noticed these LCD screens were showing one of those "informative" videos showing what to do when going through Immigrati
Its pretty frightening (Score:3, Interesting)
And when other countries do the same... (Score:2)
Want to go across the border to see Niagra Falls from the Canadian side. I can see it now, the highway will be lined with booths with computers to allow you to 'register' your itinerary
...but does it compromise my privacy? (Score:2, Funny)
Wow, I'm convinced. Sign me up.
WTF happened to the Shining City? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ronald Reagan
Farewell Address to the Nation [reaganfoundation.org]
Oval Office
January 11, 1989
Amazing how far the Republican Party has moved in 18 years.
THis is why HSA should be disbanded (Score:2)
That money need to go to the CIA/NSA/FBI and to coming up with a good foreign policy.
HSA was created to create some confusion and allow an agency to get around pesky rules established to protect our rights.
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HSA [ustreas.gov]? Do you mean DHS [dhs.gov]?
Reply to previous posters (Score:5, Interesting)
* Not to be confused with the Privileges and Immunities Clause [wikipedia.org] 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...
Re:Reply to previous posters (Score:4, Insightful)
1) allowed the NSA monitoring program to continue in spite of the fourth amendment, and
2) determined that since the Constitution only prohibits suspending a writ of habeas corpus rather than explicitly granting a writ of habeas corpus, then a writ of habeas corpus is not guaranteed by the Constitution
I hope I'm wrong, but the evidence so far suggests otherwise.
No travel plans in China (Score:3, Informative)
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This is great idea for stopping terrorists. (Score:2, Funny)
"And it really doesn't compromise your privacy" (Score:2, Interesting)
Aren't they 23 years late with this? (Score:2)
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Frankly, you all deserve the shit that happens there. So do us Canadians. Where I
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Thank you, America! (Score:2)
The only thing I filed online back then was a confirmation of my meeting with some broad from San Francisco I met in alt.drunken.bastards
I pity
Doesn't compromise privacy? (Score:2)
Registering my personal trip plans with the government doesn't compromise my privacy? Fuck off. What a bloody joke.
Another reason I invest in foreign stocks (Score:3, Insightful)
I just recommend reading Bruce Schneier's opinion. (Score:2, Insightful)
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