I Wish This Was an April Fool Joke
Apr. 2nd, 2012 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-04 09:07 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 08:12 pm (UTC)