American bureaucracy gone mad(der)

Some of the kids of my US contacts collect PEZ containers, and I pick up the European ones (which are usually different). So, I went to the local post office this morning with a new shipment, and, as soon as I told him to put "candy" on the Customs declaration, he said I couldn't sent them. It appears that the USA has its knickers in a twist about bioterrorism in the form of food products sent to the USA, so the US Food and Drug Administration has banned food imports, unless you jump through a multitude of hoops.

I went as far as to open an account in the FDA on its website, but the hoops were too much for me - for example, you have to identify the goods according to type of candy ("candy, hard, with fruit (no chocolate)"?) and you need manufacturers' codes, etc.

With PEZs there's no problem - as the container, not the candy, is the collectible, I simply take out the candy and sent the container as "toys". However, I guess I won't be sending my US agents Swiss chocolates next Christmas.

 

Na, by next Christmas they'll be so far up their own butts, worrying about who is going to attach them next they'll cut themselves off from the rest of the world and we'll never hear from them again (with any luck).

 

theres something about new passports too. if you want to travel to the states and you get a new passport after a certain date then you'll have to apply for a new visa as the current british passports don;t comply with the new 'security' measures. apparently fingerprints, barcodes, blood type, retinal scan, dna sample and a sperm sample are going to be necessary (ok i'm exagerating but it's not far off) frankly i couldn';t give a toss as i'm never likely to visit the shit hole of a country ever again but i think florida will have less tourists to shoot this or next season. xenophobic paranoids with the largest capability for destruction on the planet, almost makes you want to convert to islam.
cheers


julian

 

Well I wouldn't want to go that far, cos then you couldn't go to the pub, but yes they are just "oh look at us, we're being attacked don't you know" like we care? Drama queens the lot of 'em!

But yes I heard about the finger prints, and appantly if you have a "suspicous" name, you get searched and all that, hum sod that I'm not going over there, they're more than paranoid, they've lost the plot.

Lee

 

the thing that find particularly offensive is the fact that for years the americans have thought it a bit of a laugh to finance the ira. large corporations would contribute and everyone would write this off as 'charitable donations' for a nice tax break. now don;t get me wrong, 911 was a tradgedy but what about all the people the ira killed over the years? all that's being nicely swept under the carpet because it flies in the face of america vs the terrorists. hopefully their xenophobia will close off the borders and that putrid country will suck up all the americophiles and then revert to barbarism. at least if they do seal themselves up we and others around the world will get our cultures back. perhaps they'll offer permanent residency to kilroy-silk as well.
cheers


julian

 

You lot have obviously never been on the wrong end of UK Immigration and Customs. I have, because in my old job I used to travel regularly with groups of non-EU nationals and lots and lots of very heavy flight cases.
UK customs are unpleasant, racist, rude, officious, and very, very stupid. And yes, they are quite capable of stopping you if you have a "suspicious" name, always have been. In fact that is about the limit of their "intelligence".

 

Your right Joel I haven't, in fact the 3 times I've been out of the county I've never had my passport stamped, never saw anyone.
I'm sure its a "power" thing , the power has gone to their had and they'll stop anyone they feel like and treat them how they feel. I'm not that surprised they're racist, I mean our police force isn't much better.

With all this hatrid and distrust we'll end up distroying ourselves for sure.

 

Now that is a dam good point, we've had to suffer the IRA's bombing campaings for years which where funded by the USA and if that isn't terrisum then what is? They want to go to war on Terrisum, they should look closer to home!

 

As someone born and raised in Belfast, and most of whose family still reside there, "funded by the USA" is somewhat of an exaggeration, Lee. The very problem in the USA is the freedom inherent under British law (and you have to remember that US law is based heavily on British precedents, common law and all). So, no ID cards as are universal on the Continent, which makes it relatively hard to check on the movements of the average citizen. (In many European countries, when you move, you have to register with the local police - not in the UK or the USA).

Add to that then the fact that there are something like 40 million US citizens who claim some sort of Irish descent, and that most of these are basically anti-British, courtesy of The Great Hunger - do you realise that, in the 1840s, the population of Ireland was 9 million, and that the current population, North and South combined, is four and a half million? - the population never recovered from the disaster. Now, this does not justify terrorism, but it does explain the distorted views of many Irish-Americans.

Moreover, these Irish-Americans have done well financially (one need mention only one name, Henry Ford), and the sentimental, overromanticised view of the oul' sod and past historical events (the Great Hunger was NOT an attempt at genocide, no matter what many Americans believe) makes them cough up substantially in the cause to "free" the old country from "British imperialism". After all, we kicked the British out once, why not again?

So they give generously into "charitable" organisations, such as Noraid, that helps "Republican prisoners". These are private organisations, which, like their British equivalents, have substantial rights and freedoms under the law, and the US Government can do nothing about them, unless criminal activity is proven. And of course there is no criminal activity - on US soil anyway. Moreover, the Democratic party is careful not to alienate Irish-American voters, a major force in east coast politics.

The US Government recognises IRA activity as terrorism, but is relatively powerless to do anything, if no criminal acts are committed on US territory (something the Republicans have always been careful to avoid). It was even difficult to extradite IRA men to the UK, because US judges were convinced that they would not receive a fair trial. It was only relatively recently (and as part of the peace process) that Gerry Adams received a visa to visit the USA.

What this long-winded piece is saying is that the USA has never condoned IRA terrorism, but that, like life in general, it's a complicated situation, and not solvable easily.

 

The requirement is for a machine-readable passport, Julian. I was nearly caught by this, but the US authorities changed the implementation date from September 2003 to September 2004 for those countries whose nationals don't require visas to enter the USA (including the UK). British passports issued from about 2001 have been machine-readable, but mine is nearly 10 years old, so I needf a new one. I guess I could use either my Irish or my Australian passport, both of which are machine readable.

 

And many countries such as Egypt and Algeria claim that the UK harbours, or has harboured, Islamic terrorists in the past and has not monitored them.
The GIA are probably the most brutal and bloodthirstly terrorists in the world, and yet they are known to have (or had) cells in both the UK and France. Interestingly, one country where Islamic terrorists had a very hard time was Saddam's Iraq...
Most Americans are not pro-IRA anyway. The vast majority are very pro Brit.
In any case, the IRA had Noraid, the UK government had the CIA and FBI on its side. Hardly a fair fight I would say.

 

tones,
as someone who tries his best to ignore the crappy state of the world, sometimes something still filters through into my consciousness. there will be the requirement for a visa for uk citizens if they have a passport issued after (i guess) september this is because there is no 'hi tech fingerprint' to quote the newspiece i heard.

also you are correct when you say there is no 'governmental' support of the ira from america however as you say a lot of americans aren;t americans but irish/ mexican or irish / polish / algerian or irish / something - which seems to be the fasionable thing. so a lot of american money has directly built the bombs that killed british citizens. it's a similar situation to saudi, no official support of muslim fundamentalists yet one of the largest building firms over there is or was apparently owned by bin laden. as the saying goes there is more than one way to skin a cat.

we pour scorn on the serbs and croats for holding generational grudges also the afghanis and certainly israel / palestine but when it comes to northern ireland it's suddenly ok to dredge up something nearly 200 years old to justify atrocities. i'm sure there are arguments for both sides but complications or not the killing of innocent non combatants should stop, i don;t mean that unilaterally either, british forces should be held just as accountable for civilian deaths as the ira. perhaps that means that bush should carpet bomb london and belfast to make up for it, that seems to be the american answer to everything at the moment.
cheers


julian

 

You're not serious about being one of my apostles now are you?

That's the price the US has to pay for getting too much involved in other country's affair. Although some people seem to make the blame as far as the Brits for breeding the Americans to existence.

regards

 

Only 200? Your Irish history is in severe need of adjustment, Julian, but I won't. Suffice to say that the Irish problem with the English goes all the way back to Norman times and was complicated by the Reformation.

There is no doubt that the English list of sins in Ireland is long, and, unlike the English, the Irish do not forget them (one of the differences between the two races - and never forget that they are different, Celtic on the one hand, Anglo-Saxon on the other). So, Flanders and Swann could sing of the Irish in their "Song of Patriotic Prejudice"

They blow up policemen (or so I have heard)
And blame it on Cromwell and William the Third!

However, none of it, ever, justifies terrorism. Moreover, the IRA are frauds. They keep bleating about the British, whereas anyone with half a brain knows that the British would dump Northern Ireland tomorrow, if they could. The real culprits are their own Protestant countrymen who want to remain British, but it's easier to sell it to simplistic US supporters if it's wrapped in terms of a war of liberation against an old enemy. Nobody likes to hear the complex truth, least of all Americans with their short attention span and soundbite culture.

 

It's not quite that simple Tones. I had to recently replace my UK passport so it was machine readable for my frequent business trips to the US because my previous passport issued at the UK embassy in Lisbon (where they don't have the facilities) wasn't machine readable.

I think the requirement for machine readable came in last October and is now in force. However, they have now created a new requirement which is that all passports issued after October 26th this year will have to store "biometric" information such as digital photo and other details on a small chip. The UK (and many other Visa Waiver countries) won't have the ability to make these passports before 2005 so if you get a new passport after Oct 26th you'll be required to have a US visa.

Those with machine readable passports issued before Oct 26th will still be OK (won't require a visa) until the expiry of their passports allthough they may be required to go through the new fingerprinting and photo procedure after that date (which they currently don't have to).

So, to sum up: people with UK passports issued between Oct 26th and the time in 2005 when the new "biometric passports" start to come out will always be required to have a visa to enter the US (until they renew their passport to a biometric one).

Of course all the above applies only to the countries which are part of the US "visa waiver" program (most of the EU and a few other countries). Other people always need a visa anyway.

And, getting even a tourist visa for the US is not as easy as it used to be. You have to make an appointment and have a 1 on 1 interview

Michael.

 

tones,
i've said it before and i'll say it again that a lot of the worlds problems could be solved by everyone concentrating on making the future a better place rather than dredging up the rancid corpses of grief past. probably a little simplistic in your eyes but true nonetheless.
cheers


julian

 

Agree wholeheartedly with the first part, Julian, but it is wrong and counterproductive to forget the past. Have you ever visited Dachau concentration camp on the outskirts of Munich? The camp admin building is a museum, showing the whole history of the system (of which Dachau was the first, in 1933). The last thing you see as you leave the building is a quote from US philosopher George Santayana:

Those who forget the past
Are condemned to repeat it.

 

No, it didn't - they delayed introduction until September 2004, so my business trip to the USA in October could go ahead with my old non-machine-readable passport. Since then, I haven't worried about the subject, since I have until September to straighten things out, so I hadn't heard about the biometric data. Must investigate, because these things invariably take longer than you think.

 

P.S. Michael, the good oil from the website of the US Embassy, London.

Machine Readable and Biometric Passports

Machine Readable Passports
Visa Free travelers seeking to enter the United States under the Visa Waiver Program on or after October 26, 2004 will require individual machine readable passports. It is important to note that families will require individual passports for each traveler should they wish to travel visa free, regardless of the fact that they may currently hold machine-readable passports. Travelers not in possession of machine-readable passports will require either B-1 (business) or B-2 (tourist) visas.

Note: This requirement is already in place for passport holders from Andorra, Belgium, Brunei, Liechtenstein and Slovenia.

The requirement that the traveler be in possession of a machine readable passport applies only to those seeking entry into the United States under the Visa Waiver Program; it does not apply to those applying for visas.

Biometric Passports
Passports issued on or after October 26, 2004 must include a biometric identifier. If your passport is issued prior to this date, provided it is an individual machine-readable passport, you may continue to use the passport to travel visa free even though it does not have the biometric identifier.

How do I know if I have a machine-readable passport?

A machine readable passport can generally be identified by the presence of two typeface lines printed at the bottom of the biographical page that can be read by machine. These lines electronically provide some of the information contained on the upper part of the biographic page. If you are in any doubt as to whether or not your passport is a machine-readable passport, you should check with the passport issuing authority of your country.

If I do not have a machine-readable passport, does this mean that I must obtain a visa?

If you are a passport holder from Andorra, Belgium, Brunei, Liechtenstein or Slovenia and you will be traveling on or after October 1, 2003, you may either obtain a new machine-readable passport and use the Visa Waiver Program, if otherwise qualified, or apply for a visa using your current passport. If you decide to obtain a new passport, I strongly recommend that you review the information on visa free travel to ensure that you are indeed eligible to travel visa free under the Visa Waiver Program. This requirement will be implemented on October 26, 2004 for passport holders of the United Kingdom and the other 21 visa waiver countries.

 

Yes, but there is a stark difference between recollecting the past in your mind/brain/heart (wherever these things reside), as opposed to your fist. I think it should be supplemented by forgiveness?

So rather than the popular 'forgive and forget', perhaps 'don't forget, but forgive' (thats if you can reconcile those two principles as an individual. For some, they may be mutually exclusive)

I don't think i'll take up writing slogans or blurbs, it hardly glides off the tongue does it