*** Quoting Malte Schmidt from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***

MS>> btw: I am going to be in the USA in April 07. I hope they still let
MS>> someone from the "old europe" in that country. We plan to visit
MS>> Washington, Cleveland of course and Seattle.

CS> Just leave lots of time at the checkin side at the airport.  Takes a bit
CS> to travel to some countries, USA being one of them.

MS> But unfortunately that is quite normal, no? Does it really depend on t
MS> destination country? I thought it depended only on whether it is a  
MS> national or an international flight.

National flights are faster as you dont have to do any customs stuff.  Like
¨Bjorn, I travel 'outside' fairly often.  My last trip though, was internal
¨Japan (Fukuoka to Naha in Okinawa).  All domestic.

The airports have warnings to always try to leave at least 2 hours for
¨inprocessing if having to go through customs.  It took much of that for me
to ¨get into the USA last time.  It was just busier than normal.



CS> official orders than anything else.  Thats ok, I've been fingerprinted
CS> many times.  Have to do it again soon as part of my security clearance
CS> update. No biggie to me but some people object to it.

MS> I am not sure what to think about it. Sure it helps them to catch  
MS> criminals and terrorists but still there is this kind of general  
MS> criminalisation of all people, which I do not like about it (Even for
MS> visa one needs a picture where one looks like a criminal. :-) )

True.  But then, Charlotte was finger and foot printed when she was born as
¨part of her birth records.


MS> We still do not live in countries where every step of every person is
MS> observed for security reasons. I would like to keep it that way. They
MS> would like to have as many information of everyone as they can get if
MS> makes their work easier. Do we want to give it to them or don't we los
MS> part of our freedom with every bit of information we disclose? I reall
MS> not know!

I understand the concern.  If I werent military, I would object to some of
the ¨things, like the DNA testing.  That one was voluntary (I think it
still is but ¨not sure) and to my advantage so I opted for it.

MS> btw: They plan to include a finger print on our ID cards in Germany.

I heard about that.
                                       xxcarol

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