Let's move the tree into the forest.

Attentive fervent and loyal blog readers will remember a recent posting about the “Discover America Partnership”.
An organization created by the tourism industry trying to get money squeezed out of foreign visitors to finance and start a worldwide publicity campaign to improve the negative image the USA has abroad these days.
To convince the foreigners the USA is not only bad but beautiful as well.

“Discover America Partnership” considers it important to continue to inform this conscientious blog writer with their lobbying activities.
Recently they were sending an alarming message.

In 2008, the United States will begin to require 10-finger fingerprint scans from nearly all inbound international travelers.

Taking fingerprints is something the police do when they suspect a person of involvement in a crime.
Most foreign people, and maybe even many US citizens also, identify taking their fingerprints as being considered a possible criminal.
And an intrusion of one’s privacy: a totally innocent traveller realizes that his fingerprint is now somewhere in a database.

Not one international traveller enjoys, when entering the USA, to be interrogated, to have his picture and fingerprint taken.
And now it will get even worse.
Right now two fingers have to be put on a scanning device.
Soon, all ten of the fingers.
It will take more time, more annoyance and more disgust.

“Discover America Partnership” sees the negatives of this new measure.
They say:

“Without an effective communications strategy, deployment of 10-finger scan technology could be misconstrued as unwelcoming and intrusive, further discouraging inbound overseas travel to the United States”.

An American citizen, also annoyed because of requiring a passport these days to travel to Mexico for which he is overcharged and needs to wait weeks, could say:
“What is the big thing of being fingerprinted and photographed when entering my country?”

Well, if it was only that, it could be argued indeed what is the big deal about it.
But it is not only fingerprinting and portrait pictures taken.

Only international travellers from a small group of countries can come to the USA and get a visa at the border.
Most people worldwide need to go to an American Embassy or Consulate in their own country and apply for a visa there costing a considerable amount of money.
They often need to travel long distance to reach the US Embassy where they have to wait in line.
No appointments can be made: outside the building they can wait.
After applying for the visa they have to come back and this after waiting for weeks.
At that point they will find out if the visa was awarded or not.
If not, no explanations are given.
The person cannot go to the USA and has lost his money and time.
This procedure is not only for tourists but for everybody.
Even business people, professors, artists, etc.

The people from the European Union have it more easy.
When travelling to the USA they get a visa at the arriving airport.
This is based on an agreement made on June 28, 2007 between the USA and the EU.
In this agreement it says that of each traveller to the USA 34 pieces of personal information has to be supplied.
The PNR data.
The PNR data consist of all relevant information related to a passenger's flight: departure and return flights, connecting flights, special services required on board the flight (meals such as kosher or halal) and payment information such as the credit cards used to purchase the ticket.
Knowing the credit card number a great amount of private information can be traced of the person.

Because all that data was promised by the USA to be safe and protected, out of concern of privacy, the EU signed the agreement.
Once signed, the USA one-sided made exemptions to that agreement.
The personal data of the traveller will be made available to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and all the agencies that share its data and the Automated Targeting System (ATS) and will be kept in databases for 100 years.
This has created a big row between the EU and the USA.
And the whole agreement is re-negotiated when the EU is more than ever suspicious of the USA negotiation tactics.

It is therefore not only a matter of having fingerprints and a portrait picture taken entering the USA.
The personal data of an international visitor gets into an uncontrollable Big Brother USA machinery.
How would an American citizen feel experiencing this awful treatment when wishing to travel abroad?

It is not hard to imagine that people abroad therefore decide not to come to the USA anymore.
And as has been stated before, it is very naive of “Discover America Partnership” to think that a PR campaign will be of any positive influence.

It is one thing that international visitors stay away of the USA, as the figures show.
This hurts, among others, the tourist industry and lowers the income of the whole nation with billions annually.
But does that matter?
The war in Iraq is costing until now over $ 468,000,000,000.

What is more important than the lost money is the cultural, political, economic and social isolation.
The danger of a country turning introvert.

A tree alone in an open field does not survive.
It must be in a forest.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To check the costs of the war in Iraq, consult:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html

To learn more about the failed agreement between the USA and the EU about personal data of international travellers, click on:

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/sep/04eu-usa-pnr-exemptions.htm

or

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/jan/09eu-usa-pnr-databases.htm

or

http://courtofjustice.blogspot.com/2006/08/us-want-to-expand-pnr-data-agreement.html

To learn more about “Discover America Partnership”, click on:
http://www.poweroftravel.org






.