2011/8/11 James Hare <[email protected]>: > On Aug 11, 2011, at 9:49 AM, "church.of.emacs.ml" > <[email protected]> wrote: >
> While no one has the power to exempt anyone from security checks (in fact, > whenever former Secretary of State Colin Powell travels, he gets the full > check to show that everyone has to follow the rules), we can coordinate with > TSA, tell them about our conference (including how tech-oriented some of the > attendees are), and ask them for advice to make the security check process as > simple as possible. My impression, though, is that while Israeli security > focuses on you as a person, TSA mostly focuses on your stuff. Follow all > their rules (take out laptop for separate x-ray scan, only small bottles of > liquid, etc.) and I think you will be fine, but unfortunately I only have the > perspective of a white US citizen. > > I actually think the bigger obstacle will be obtaining a visa, for those who > don't live in visa exempt countries. As mentioned earlier, we will do > everything in our power to make the process easier; we will even be looking > into visa scholarships. It helps that the US State Department knows what > Wikipedia is and that they have sent people to two Wikimanias, 2006 and 2011. > When entering to US via LAX airport in 2008 for scientific conference, TSA authorities decided for some reasons that I am a susspicous person and put me to something similar to a police station, where I had to wait for around 2 hours after which I was interrogated by an officer who asked me several personal questions (about family and religous background, what I did in US before, the reasons of entering, if I have credit card what is max. credit on it etc..). Anyway although not that bad as Isreal border control it was also not very nice experience :-) -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
