US makes travellers go online, before getting onboard

To be fair to the Americans...

...but exactly how is their scheme different from the ETA scheme that the Australians have been running for years and which I've never heard anyone here in the UK complain about?

Oh yes, the visa that isn't a visa at all, nosiree

I was quite amazed to learn that before 1914, people needed no papers whatsoever, so no passport, no visa, and no id card, nevermind to be enrolled in this scheme or that database, to travel all of europe.

This was changed in the war, obviously, but never thereafter unchanged. Curious. What a big leap forward schengen is, don't you agree? Knowing the contemporary state of the art will help us predict when the EU will "reciprocate", which they should because the USoA is really big on that and expects everybody else to do unto them as they do unto everybody else. They said so themselves on their Department of State's Official Website.

I for one, if elected, would scrap as many id requirements as I can get away with, just to see the chaos that ensues. Then we can work out what parts of the whole rigamole are really needed, which is probably, seeing the current systems' effectiveness, somewhere below the 5% mark of system and even lower for "hassle". But that would be truly innovative in contemporary government, so it'll never happen. Our politicians like this year of our lord nineteenhundred and eighty four far too much.

Anyone think...

That it's steps like these that'll eventually lead to WW3 between the EU and the USA..... I mean seriously all this intolerance and paranoia cannot be good for human society!

Pay to enter the USA?

Why the hell would you want to do that?

What is it with the Septics assuming that their nation is the best on the planet? Jay-zuz.

I like it

I quite like the process. Much easier to fill the form in online and print it out. I got 'approved' within seconds when I filled it in for when it first started last year.

Updating it for my current trip (I am currently in the US and flying back to the UK tomorrow) was easy enough and painless.

Much easier than trying to write on a green form when you are on an airplane, remembering where you are staying a contact telephone number etc. Especially when the plane could be going through turbulance.

I think its a change for the better - but a lot of people hate change.....

Makes sence but

The whole process was litteraly a few hours before landing here is a small check list for you to go thru: are you aterroist, communist, plans to do bad etc etc - answear no and that was it. I'm supprised that this alone wasn't enough, now they want the anwears from you before you even get on the plane. Why, that would make the information actualy useful and allow it to be checked prior to people getting on a flight. Crazy people :).

But the whole airport security is IMHO more a case of plicating passangers than actualy doing the job. I mean seriously you cant take a knife onto the plane but you can take a very sharp pointed pen or pencil easily as - heck even if you aint got one I'm sure they would give you one on the plane to fill out there forms. think the penny has dropped and it wont be long until we cant take a pen onto the plane.

What scares me most on aimarican flights is not the fact that people are not allowed weapons onto the plane but the fact the authorities actualy put weapons onto the plane with a few homeland security peeeps who are there to keep an eye on questionable people. Fact is that a few people can get onto a flight and one can be sat in a position were they look paniced prior to the flight enough to dictate were these homeland security people sit is another concerning aspect of how security is run thesedays.

Still at least they now offer internet on planes - is this internet 100% physicaly secuired against all the planes control systems or is it 100% secured by a peace of software like a firewall as I fear its the latter.

Though there is one positive aspect to be drawn from this change in vettings, at least they listern to what you have to say and dont fill in the blanks themselfs, or do they, is this form mearly a placebo. Bottom line I personaly think the whole aspect of people wanting to kill others in the name of some invisable man who at the same time is heard as a profit of epace by a majority is frankly more fucked up than any security process in place to stop these people.

If I did a security questionaire it would be along the lines of this:

Do you believe in God? ( and dont lie coz he is watching you.)

if they answear yes then they dont get to fly.

A very crude way but alot more effective sadly.

Now if they isn't enough then the next laywer of questions would be introduced and be:

Are you a virgin ?(incorrect answears will lead to you losing your sexual orgins)

these two simple questions would allow you to identify all current and potentual terroists of the type of terroists we have today.

i would put the joke monica upon this but at a ironic level of justice we seem to wich to impose its about as close to the truth as you can get. Is this an inditement upon security today or religion today.

Indeed is security now index linked to levels of religion, I'm sure somebody could write a book upon that if they havn't already.

}->

ANON becasue somebody might thing I was twittering about an airport :|

The real reason

JaitcH: All this 'security' is for nothing.

On the contrary: It exists to employee more government flunkies and to piss away U.S. tax dollars....

No problem

They probably have better broadband coverage in the tribal areas of Pakistan then we do in the USA.

No Nazi question

To be fair to the Americans it does not ask if you were/are a Nazi - it basically asks you if you were involved in war crimes in the period 1939-1945. So you could have been on any side.

The have you ever been convicted of a crime of "moral turpitude" is far more "interesting"

Fuss about nothing

You only have to do it once every two years and it sure beats filling in the damed forms on the plane.

@Paul 87

> ... eventually lead to WW3 between the EU and the USA..

Oceania always has been and always will be allies with Eurasia.

Half a sec while I redraw the map of Eurasia to include Britain and Ireland.

title

i had to fill this since i have a connecting flight to Mexico from there. It's anoying since i wont even leave the airport, i am literally flying from heathrow to huston and then catching a connecting flight to Mexico.

I find the yanks attitude to British travelers anoying at best, i thought we were their closest ally? is it customary to make your closest allies sign a form saying that they were not a member of the nazi party and ask them if they are a terrorist, are a member of a terrorist organisation etc...

No i am bloody not and i take at offense at the notion that you think that i might be!