U.S. Congress Contemplates Requiring Foreign Travelers to Pre-register

by Iva Skoch on

This idea is sure to kill off a lot of tourism to the U.S., and put a thumb in the eye of businesspeople. According to the NY Times yesterday, the U.S. Congress is considering a request by the Department of Homeland Security to require people in 27 countries to pre-register their travel plans 48 hours before departure to the U.S.

The 27 targeted countries are mostly Western European, and they’re mostly countries whose citizens can already travel to the U.S. for up to 90 days without a visa.

This also flies in the face of efforts by new EU countries (such as the Czech Republic) to have visa requirements lifted, so that their citizens can visit the U.S. more easily.

Travel to the U.S. has plunged over 17% since 2000, in part because of foreigners’ perceptions that they aren’t welcome in the U.S., costing 200,000 jobs and $16 Billion in lost tourism, according to the U.S. travel industry.

Of course, U.S. officials think it’s not a problem because they’re proposing an on-line registration. But, it begs the question: what if one person on the plane forgets to pre-register? Does the plane get turned around? Or just routed to Guantanamo?

America the Unfriendly

by Iva Skoch on

Discover America Partnership, a travel industry PR organization (we’ve blogged about before), just announced the results of a global survey ranking the U.S. as the least friendly place to travel to. They polled 2,011 travelers in 16 countries that said that the U.S. is ranked “worst” in the world in terms of obtaining visas and general entry procedures.

More than half said US officials were rude and two-thirds feared being detained for simple mistakes in paperwork or saying the wrong thing to officials upon arriving.

They noted also that the number of visitors (other than from Canada and Mexico) has declined by 17% since 2000. Business travel declined by 10%. On a lighter note, most thought that once they got past Homeland Security, their travel experience was “great.”

Flying Las Vegas & Surveillance Detection Reports

by Adrienne Wilson on

Now this is scary. After checking in on one of my all-time fav and probably my only Indian culture / Desi blog in the whole wide world – Sepia Mutiny, I discovered some semi-disturbing news. Apparently some federal air marshals out of Las Vegas are reporting your actions to meet a quota, but of course top officials are denying accusations. The news made its way to Sepia Mutiny via 7News out of Denver where air marshals, whose identities were concealed said they are required to submit at least one SDR a month. Consequences of not making quota is no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments. Hmm…

SDR’s (Surveillance Detection Reports) are government documents that report all things out of the ordinary occurring in the airport and are said to be in place at Las Vegas McCarran Intl’ airport. Behavior that could place an individual on such documents could be almost anything for an air marshal hard up to make quota and get his big bonus. Here’s what ennis at Sepia Mutiny ponders:

“… imagine you’re a Marshal, under serious pressure to say you observed something fishy. Who do you think you’d write up? A white grandmother? A congressional staffer? Or a swarthy young male with a beard, even if he’s really handsome?”

I have to agree with the thinking here and pray there isn’t a ridiculous quota system out there placing innocent people like myself on some homeland security list. I can just see an air marshal glancing down at my feet (in sandals) to discover my tattoo in Farsi only to toss me on some list later on when they haven’t made their numbers.

Think twice about taking photos in the airport or airplane. That too counts as suspicious behavior. And who says our government’s databases aren’t filled with bad information?