Korean Job Discussion Forums

[igotthisguitar]

U.S. Ambassador To Canada Urges Travellers
To Submit To Passport Changes
Mon Dec 4, 6:07 PM

By Melanie Patten

HALIFAX (CP) - With only weeks to go before travellers flying to the United States are required to carry passports, the American ambassador to Canada wants to quell fears that the new law will hurt the tourism industry.

David Wilkins warned Monday that trying to delay the law could have a negative impact on travellers and tourism operators. "It's time we all stop looking in the rear-view mirror, stop trying to kill the plan, slow it down or change it," Wilkins told a conference of the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia.

"My country wants what you want: prosperity and security. As President Bush has said, you can't have trade and you can't have tourism without security, and they are not mutually exclusive."

Citizens of Canada, Bermuda, Mexico and the United States itself will be required to show a passport or other accepted document when entering the States at airports as of Jan. 23.

Passports will also be needed at land crossing and seaports by June 2009. The U.S. Congress had initially planned to implement the regulations by Jan. 1, 2008, but announced a 17-month extension this fall.


Opponents of the plan - also known as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative - have warned that the cost of getting a passport could deter some American travellers.

Gordon Stewart, who has had 35 years of experience in the tourism industry, said it could be challenging to persuade some American visitors - particularly those who drive to Canada - to get passports.

"The likelihood of those people having passports is not nearly as high as (Wilkins) would like," said Stewart, the executive director of the Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia. "People who go to Europe and other places will have passports, but maybe people who do that short-haul market won't necessarily do that."

Wilkins said the number of U.S. citizens applying for passports has risen sharply in the past few months.

The United States also plans to introduce a high-tech passport card that's half the size - and cost - of current passports next year.

Wilkins said carrying a passport is the latest in a series of security measures implemented since the terrorist attacks on the States in 2001.

"We live in a post-9-11 world and it's simply time for all of us, Canadians and Americans alike . . . to work together to implement it as smoothly as possible," Wilkins said. "It's going to happen."

The past chairman of the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia said the industry is in support of the plan.

"We accepted it some time ago," said Nicholas Carson. "We just have to adjust our strategies accordingly."

[ajgeddes]

Everybody on this board has a passport, why would anything change?

[Moldy Rutabaga]

[Ya-ta Boy]

The heading is not very news-worthy. What else would an ambassador say? It would have been MUCH more interesting and exciting if the ambassador had said:

U.S. Ambassador To Canada Urges Travellers To FIGHT THE POWER!!!

[twg]

I dont see this as any sort of problem as long as Americans have to do the same when they travel to their colonies... er, Canada.

[igotthisguitar]

Millions Assigned "Terror Risk" Score On Trips To The US

� Information gleaned from travellers to build profiles
� Rights groups protest over 'decimation' of Privacy Act

Ed Pilkington in New York
Saturday December 2, 2006
The Guardian

Millions of American and international travellers coming into and out of the US over the past four years have each been assigned a risk assessment score designed to pinpoint potential terrorists or criminals, the US government has revealed.

The travellers, including all British passengers to the US, have been given a security profile that draws on information from a number of key American departments as well as intelligence held on them by the airlines and co-operating governments.

The profiles are held in a central computer in Washington for 40 years.

The details of the system, known as the Automated Targeting System or ATS, were put on the federal noticeboard last month but attracted little attention. The system builds on measures to target suspected terrorists first developed in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

The process of garnering intelligence from many different sources and then processing it to produce a profile or score indicating risk levels was initially applied to cargo. But over recent years it has been widened to include individual air passengers as well as flight crews, without any public notification and without the knowledge of data protection groups.

The Department of Homeland Security said it was putting out information about the profiling system as part of its commitment to open government. ATS is "one of the most advanced targeting systems in the world" it said, with the primary purpose of "targeting, identifying, and preventing potential terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the US".

But civil liberties groups fear it amounts to an unwarranted intrusion on privacy. "This is a tremendously significant deal. It means the federal government has secretly assigned a terrorist rating to tens of millions of US citizens," said Marc Tenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

David Sobel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told the Associated Press: "It's probably the most invasive system the government has yet deployed in terms of the number of people affected."

The ATS database works by drawing together information held on individuals and companies from the US Treasury, customs and immigration departments and enforcement agencies. Commercial airlines supply data through passenger name records, and foreign governments share intelligence on a bilateral basis.

The computer sets a risk rating for each person by analysing information such as the passenger's history of one-way ticket purchase, seat preferences, frequent flyer records, number of bags, how they pay for tickets and even what meals they order. The computer uses a number of rules built into its programme which the Department of Homeland Security says "help identify suspicious or unusual behaviour".

The department emphasises that the risk rating is only used as a guide to immigration officers at the borders to assist them in selecting passengers to interview upon entry as part of their inspection procedures. So, it says, the individual is at no greater risk from ATS than being put through a border interview of the kind that many passengers experience in any case as part of random inspections.

But civil rights groups point to a potential Catch 22 in the system in which individuals are never allowed to know what their risk rating is, yet they are allowed to challenge the information upon which that rating is posited.

Mr Tenberg said the provision effectively decimated the Privacy Act. "This is a secretive government system that lacks transparency and any meaningful application of the act."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1962299,00.html

[Green Tea]

I absolutely refuse to visit the states. Last time I went was in 2001. A customs agent at the border gave me a hard time for no reason, held me up for an hour and 45 minutes, searched my car, asked a bunch of odd questions then refused me entry. Even after finding no reason to deny me, he still looked at me like I was dirt and did just about everything accept spit in my face.

I have never had any trouble with the law, I am a clean cut young white male, was polite and gave a clear reason for wanting to visit... (Day off, tourism, look at some shops). All that and the gray haired old fool still wanted to play super cop and give me grief... So, I say to hell with america from now on. I'll never go back, never buy anything online from america, try my best not to buy american made goods whenever there is a reasonable alternative, never eat at american food chains, never use american dollars when overseas and never speak kindly of imperialist morons again.

I'm very happy that world opinion of that horrible country is going down. Once, not so long ago it was outrageous to speak badly of america. Now, anyone who speaks well of them looks like a right wing nut job.

[Bulsajo]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Bulsajo]

Suddenly the States just became that much more appealing to me- I can be certain of never running into Green Tea there!

[andrew]

.....

[wannago]

Gosh, now that I'm over the shock and despair of Green Tea never coming to the States again, I would have to agree with andrew's assertion that some smart-ass comment was made by the Tea. Of course, these kinds of things are conveniently left out of the story. I would also suggest that Green Tea's anti-America feelings were present long before this encounter with a crusty customs agent. All countries have them, they're all members of the same family I think. Hell, if I would have held the same against Canada for bad behavior at customs and immigration, I would have never come back to Canada after my first flight through Toronto. Get a grip. Customs agents are people, not the entire country. Meanwhile, I'll be crying softly to myself over your self-imposed exile from the land of the free and the home of the brave.

[supernick]

News flash there wannaga.

it's no longer the land of the free. You and others who have bought that line have been fooling yourselves for too many years.

And Green Tea, just think of the U.S. border guard as a gay Mr.T. He took a fancy to you, and when you wouldn't comply he turned on you.

[wannago]

[supernick]