Air America breaking news: "USA to fingerprint ALL visitors !!!"

Marie Lewis wrote:

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message

I think anyone coming from Europe or the rest of the world,
who truly feels this represents "big brother" or "police
state America" best just stay home.

No, we can visit all the other better places.

Why is our concern for *our* security too much for you to bear?

Once some standard for biometric passports are determined,
*every nation* will have a fingerprint, or some equivalent
biometric, encoded in their passport and it will all be
transparent.

Why are you not concerned with government use of your passport
information as it is already defined? "They" have your name
and photograph and address. You're not concerned "they" might
send the black helicopters out for you? Or do the black helos
only fly around American skies?

The bottom line is this is an internal national policy decision
undertaken by a democratic form of government with a lot of
checks and balances built into the system to prevent abuse,
at least over the long run, and in a context of protecting our
citizens from horrific international terrorism.

The fact that your anti-Americanism leads you to believe the
US is some sort of banana republic where the evil President[tm]
enjoys removing personal freedoms from all is a problem of
your own prejudice and bigotry.

By all means, take your damn euros and spend them in a "better
place"!

I don't have much sympathy for them.

Oh, how terrible!! We are *really* upset not to have your sympathy. Not.

That's precisely the problem, and why such individuals
aren't regarded by me as any loss.

I am coming around to absolutely despising Europeans, or
at least a fairly large subset of them!


SMH

Sjoerd wrote:

"Stephen Harding" schreef in bericht

One less anti-American Euro in line at the airport
is fine with me.

I am not an anti-American. I am an anti-American-current-government. And I
won't stay home, there are 100's of beautiful countries in the world to
discover where they won't fingerprint me. And should I miss typical American
stuff, I can always visit Canada. :-)

You may have just insulted some Canadians with that
comment ya know!


SMH

God you guys are so stuck up your arse it hurts.

Don't you realise that we are your allies and we are sick an tired of being
treated like the enemy? Being made to stand for hours on end, because you
cant get people to man immigration desks or do security properly is now
starting to make most of us determined to avoid your paranoid country.

Last month it took me 3 hours to get from the plane to cab in Atlanta
airport and that was before all this photo and fingerprint stuff started.

How will you like it when you arrive at Heathrow and we insist that you
stand in line for hours on end. Yep I'll be listening to moaning Wilmers
complaining that they are being treated as terrorists. Funny how that's OK,
but when we complain we are raving Pink Commies..

If ever a country needs to get out of diapers its the USA...

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Marie Lewis wrote:

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message

I think anyone coming from Europe or the rest of the world,
who truly feels this represents "big brother" or "police
state America" best just stay home.

No, we can visit all the other better places.

Why is our concern for *our* security too much for you to bear?

Once some standard for biometric passports are determined,
*every nation* will have a fingerprint, or some equivalent
biometric, encoded in their passport and it will all be
transparent.

Why are you not concerned with government use of your passport
information as it is already defined? "They" have your name
and photograph and address. You're not concerned "they" might
send the black helicopters out for you? Or do the black helos
only fly around American skies?

The bottom line is this is an internal national policy decision
undertaken by a democratic form of government with a lot of
checks and balances built into the system to prevent abuse,
at least over the long run, and in a context of protecting our
citizens from horrific international terrorism.

The fact that your anti-Americanism leads you to believe the
US is some sort of banana republic where the evil President[tm]
enjoys removing personal freedoms from all is a problem of
your own prejudice and bigotry.

By all means, take your damn euros and spend them in a "better
place"!

I don't have much sympathy for them.

Oh, how terrible!! We are *really* upset not to have your sympathy.
Not.

That's precisely the problem, and why such individuals
aren't regarded by me as any loss.

I am coming around to absolutely despising Europeans, or
at least a fairly large subset of them!


SMH

In rec.travel.usa-canada Stephen Harding wrote:

I am coming around to absolutely despising Europeans, or
at least a fairly large subset of them!


My take is simply to not take the stupid, blanket-hatred posts too seriously.
Read the reasonable ones and completely ignore the Marie Lewis's you come
across.

As for the general tone of Anti-Americanism (which most will swear up and down
isn't the case), don't forget that it's a tender time for Euros at the moment.
If the US can be of help in their effort to combine, why not? Let them bitch
and moan. They're good at it. Been doing it for centuries against each other,
*and* other social classes within their own countries.

Where is all the tradition, all this pent-up cultural imperative to go now
that it's deemed uncool? Nex

On Sun, 4 Apr 2004 11:14:00 +0200, "Sjoerd"
wrote:


"Chad Irby" schreef in bericht
. com...

But for the 200 to 500 mile range, people over here have *cars*, which
gives them much more flexibility. And the continental US is 3000 miles
across.

I own a nice car. But I travel by train often when it is more convenient. I
get to read a nice book or the newspaper, I can stare out of the window and
relax, I arrive fresh, I get to chat to interesting people of various age
groups, etc, etc. Many advantages of travelling by train.

Sjoerd

The pity of it is that the US rail network, even in the Boston -
Washington corridor, is uderused in my experience. The Amtrak "Acela"
expresses (French built btw) seem to run two-thirds empty. Pity -
they're comfortable and fast.

Older Amtrak coaches are comfortable, lots of legroom - fine way of
seeing the country.

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Sjoerd wrote:

"Stephen Harding" schreef in bericht

One less anti-American Euro in line at the airport
is fine with me.

I am not an anti-American. I am an anti-American-current-government. And I
won't stay home, there are 100's of beautiful countries in the world to
discover where they won't fingerprint me. And should I miss typical American
stuff, I can always visit Canada. :-)

You may have just insulted some Canadians with that
comment ya know!

OTOH, they might just be flattered. Why don't we let the Canadians speak for
themselves....I'm sure they can handle it without our help.

George Z.

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Sjoerd wrote:

"Stephen Harding" schreef in bericht

I think anyone coming from Europe or the rest of the world,
who truly feels this represents "big brother" or "police
state America" best just stay home. I don't have much
sympathy for them.

Fine, we agree then and I for sure will stay home. I don't trust the US
government and believe they might abuse my fingerprints.

One less anti-American Euro in line at the airport
is fine with me.

A toast to staying home!

As long as you stay there.

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Marie Lewis wrote:

Why are you not concerned with government use of your passport
information as it is already defined? "They" have your name
and photograph and address.

I helped to elect my government. And they do NOT have my finger prints so
why should yours have them?

You're not concerned "they" might
send the black helicopters out for you? Or do the black helos
only fly around American skies?

Never heard of the "black helicopters." Must be an American thing.

The bottom line is this is an internal national policy decision
undertaken by a democratic form of government with a lot of
checks and balances built into the system to prevent abuse,

Ha!
at least over the long run, and in a context of protecting our
citizens from horrific international terrorism.

Then why do other countries not need finger prints?

The fact that your anti-Americanism leads you to believe the
US is some sort of banana republic where the evil President[tm]
enjoys removing personal freedoms from all is a problem of
your own prejudice and bigotry.

I hope and pray that most of your fellow countrymen have more sense than
you: and more discrimination.

By all means, take your damn euros and spend them in a "better
place"!

We shall. Or visit Canada.

I don't have much sympathy for them.

Oh, how terrible!! We are *really* upset not to have your sympathy.
Not.

That's precisely the problem, and why such individuals
aren't regarded by me as any loss.

I am coming around to absolutely despising Europeans, or
at least a fairly large subset of them!

I'll take that as a compliment. Anyone or anything you hate must have
something good.

"Alan Pollock" wrote in message
...
In rec.travel.usa-canada Stephen Harding wrote:

I am coming around to absolutely despising Europeans, or
at least a fairly large subset of them!


My take is simply to not take the stupid, blanket-hatred posts too
seriously.
Read the reasonable ones and completely ignore the Marie Lewis's you come
across.


Oh yes, ignore anyone who does not agree with you. Very sensible.

As for the general tone of Anti-Americanism (which most will swear up and
down
isn't the case), don't forget that it's a tender time for Euros at the
moment.

Why? We in the UK are doing very well, thank you.


If the US can be of help in their effort to combine, why not? Let them
bitch
and moan. They're good at it. Been doing it for centuries against each
other,
*and* other social classes within their own countries.


You make no sense at all.

Sjoerd wrote:
Universal health care has nothing to do with government officials have
access to medical records. You need to study these things a bit more before
making absurd claims.

Well technically, since health care workers are employed by the government,
then it is true that government employees have access to your records :-)

The thing is that governments have very strick privacy laws. And in most
civilised nations, there are also strong nationwide privacy laws in effect.

The problem is when you have a country that lacks such strick privacy laws and
where government agencies share data at will and are allowed to provide data
to private enterprise which have no legal obligation to protect data, then
there is leakage.

In the USA, you have no idea to whom your HMO is sharing your data with. But
in Canada, you know that your provincial government is the sole body with
access to the data and that it enforces strict privacy laws. Furthermore,
because health care is universal, a government doesn't care if you are
terminally ill or in excellent shape, whereas in the USA, the HMOs really do
care because they would rather not insure the terminall ill as a new customer.

And again, it is your own government that knows about you.

Now, when you look at fingerprints or other very personal identification, it
will be a foreign government (USA) with no defined privacy laws that will hold
your personal information and not only have you no idea what will happen to
it, but also no legal right over their holding your information. Will you be
able to verify that they have destroyed your prints after X years ? Will you
be able to verify that they have not passed your prints to someone else ?
(think access to information). Because one is not a citizen of the USA, one
will have very little rights to access personal information about yourself
held by the USA.