Guido, I agree with every word of your "Re Carson's philosophical question" in V6 #278.
Let me tell you something. My daughter is at University in Canada. In order to get there from Singapore she flies to Tokyo, changes planes, then flies to Detroit, changes planes, then flies on to Canada. International Agreements state that airline-passengers who spend less than a minimum time (6 hours in most countries) in transit at airports are deemed not to have entered the country. My daughter doesn't officially enter Japan; she just waits in the transit lounge until her flight is called. Similarly, she doesn't officially enter the USA, but the practise is that she is forced off the plane in Detroit, then forced to go through US immigration because the transit lounge is on the wrong side of the Immigration counter. She has done this trip 4 times now; on 3 occasions her bags have been opened, and on one occasion she was subjected to a body search. All this without (officially) entering in the country !! She has now been informed that she will be FINGERPRINTED next time her plane touches down in Detroit, unless she applies in advance for a visa, which will also involve fingerprinting & extraction of other (unstated) biometric data. In civilised countries this is what they do to criminals when they get taken off to jail, not to airline passengers moving from one plane to another. No wonder there is so much resentment. Peter O'Byrne Singapore _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
