Peter O'B wrote
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, I know, I have been in the US many times. The US people should
be better informed about the politics of their administration. If they
were, they would be surprised that 9_11 (which was a very serious and
despicable crime) did not happen earlier. And when the politic don't
change, it will happen again.
Regards
Guido
Dr. Guido J. Braem
PS. I bet the two of us are making it to the CIA blacklist
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