I Wish This Was an April Fool Joke

[kevin_standlee]

...but it's dated last Monday.

US asserts authority to Stop travel from non-US countries to any North American country

Get this? You can't fly from the UK to, say, Toronto for this year's World Fantasy Convention without the permission of the US government, even though you're never going to set foot on US soil, and even if your flight isn't crossing US airspace. And you won't know if you've been granted that permission until you try to board your flight, and if you're denied boarding, it's your own problem and there's no recourse.

Somehow the US government has managed to make the UK and our neighbors knuckle under to this and effectively said that the US controls all North American airspace. What's next, a declaration of annexation of Canada, Mexico, etc.?

I've complained to my (soon-to-be-ex-) congressman, but what can I do about this? And what are Canada, the Bahamas, the UK, etc. thinking in giving away their sovereignty to the the US this way? Can you imaging how angry the US government would be if (say) the UK declared that it had the right to veto travel of anyone traveling from the USA to anywhere in the EU? The USA would say, "No you don't" and would brush it aside.

If I were the Toronto World Fantasy Convention Committee, I would be getting nervous about how many of their members from outside of the USA and Canada will actually be able to attend or will simply cancel their trips rather than deal with the random possibility of being denied boarding because their name appears on a Secret US List.

Comments

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

Just speculating, but there's a flight regulation that basically says for any point in the flight route, you have to be able to identify an airport you can land at within "n" minutes, where n is between an hour and three hours and depends on the aircraft type (how long it's certified to fly safely with an engine out, basically.) If these flights, even if they don't cross US airspace, use US airports as the designated airport at some point, then presumably if something happened (or somebody on the plane made something happen) at just the right spot, the plane would be forced to land in the US. I guess the DHS wouldn't want people on the No Fly list to get in the US even in an emergency. (Google "ETOPS" for info on the regulation.)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Even so, I think other countries should start doing the same thing to US carriers. And in particular, Canada should close their airspace to US flights. That would hit the US carriers in the only thing that matters — their treasury.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

Or at least demanding the same information before they're allowed into Canadian airspace, which is necessary to go to Europe, or (depending where you start) chunks of Asia.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Passengers departing the USA to go elsewhere already give the info to TSA, correct? I doubt getting the TSA to give the info to the Canadians will get any political action going - unless they start turning back flights at the border at random. Do you think one in a thousand would do the trick?

[jane-dennis.livejournal.com]

It seems to be much less "innocent" than that:

The US will have full details of all British visitors to Cuba, including business travellers, which could potentially be used to identify people suspected of breaking America's draconian sanctions against the Castro regime. I wouldn't expect it to stop with Cuba either.

I doubt the airlines of affected countries are in a position to get into a pissing match with the US, even if their governments had the will to resist this (which Harper's gov. clearly doesn't).

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Vancouver has been trying to be a global meeting hub as equidistant from Europe and Asia. So much for that concept....

[fcmoulton.livejournal.com]

I recommend the blog post by Bruce Schneier concerning TSA
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/03/harms_of_post-9.html
And of course the TSA objected when he was to testify about TSA and he was disinvited
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/03/congressional_t.html

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I know. But what are we supposed to do? Our representatives still seem cowed by the "either you support the TSA or you support Terrorism," which is a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation. Even the few who speak up seem to be viewed as crackpots. (And unfortunately, judged by some of their other unrelated opinions, some of them probably are.)

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

I'm appalled and horrified. That the US would demand countries (and allies) cede sovereignty is frightening and that they would agree is even worse.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

What it would appear to be is that they're not actually strong-arming the countries, but instead companies flying from those places, telling them, "We won't let you fly into our county unless you do thus-and-such regarding your other flights to these places." And the countries affected aren't doing anything about it. Or maybe the companies themselves don't want to raise a fuss, figuring it's easier to knuckle under to the Evil Americans than to risk losing the lucrative business.

[retro-rider55.livejournal.com]

"Patriot Act = The Terrorists Have Won"

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

'Fraid so. Lots of terrified people who want the guv'mint to Do Something. I despair of my fellow citizens when I hear them interviewed when the frog-boiling heat goes up an notch and they say "I feel much safer."

Mark my words: the TSA will eventually assert the right to stop you anywhere in the country, public or private, and demand Your Papers Pliz, and the failure to produce them will be a crime that will subject you to immediate detention. Down this path, if unchecked, leads Secret Police and everyone informing on everyone else to try and save their own skins.

[retro-rider55.livejournal.com]

A very good point, Mr. Standlee, and while we're on the subject, why is that keyboard so far away from the Telescreen?

[wayward-va.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

talk to Canadian ambassador

[jorhett.livejournal.com]

I would have a talk to the Canadian ambassador about whether or not Canada wants to let the US restrict their visitors.

In particular, an ambassador has the rights and privileges to guarantee her travel. In fact, the canadian ambassador could guarantee her right to fly into the US, even :) But seriously, asking him to ensure that Cheryl can fly to Canada is very much worth the effort.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The mechanism they're using bypasses governments. It's not a government-to-government thing. What the US is telling airlines is, "If you don't do what we tell you to do, we'll revoke your US landing rights." See the difference? I don't think there are any air carriers flying Europe-Canada who don't also serve US points, and those US points are almost certainly a huge important piece of their business; in most cases, probably more important than the non-US ones. So the airlines either do what Boss Sam tells them to do or they stop flying to the USA.