______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: SF and Ecology, and travel restrictions
Author: MARINA YERESHENKO <my0203@BRONCHO.UCOK.EDU> at Internet
Date: 9/4/97 10:25 PM
Neil,
You might be right about this. Even in the Soviet Union ID's in
airports became recquired only after a plane was high-jacked to Turkey in
1970, with the whole crew and some passengers killed by the terrorists
(who tried to emigrate that way). Before that, no one cared for the ID's
and names. Even though there was not a lot of freedom otherwise. The problem
is, any government would rather be accused in violating human rights
than in inability of protecting human lives.
king about. It's for our own good, after all. >
> Neil Rest
>
Marina: Neil is right about this. You have to show a valid ID to fly
on the commercial airlines. People really don't question this, but it
constitutes a license to travel. I can't imagine how many average
folks who are unaware of this have been halted at airports.
All of this is in response to the Flight 800 crash, which they thought
was caused by terrorism, a link never proved.
This new license to fly is a big hassle. Before I flew out to San
Francisco from DC in June, I had to spend an entire afternoon going to
the drivers license bureau to get my license renewed. Not an easy
thing to go do when you don't own a car. I almost forgot to do it too,
since I don't own a car and my license had just expired.
This new restriction is just the tip of the iceberg. At the end of the
year something called "passenger profiling" goes into full effect.
This will be a computerized system designed to identify potential
"terrorists." I'm sure that lots of folks will be inconvenienced by
this. I have one acquaintance, who is an American dissident, who has
been hassled by this system when they tried to travel.
Sorry this is so off topic, but I didn't see Event Horizon nor GI
Jane.
Chuck0 "glad to hear that a Babylon 5 episode won a Hugo"
Bab5 Zone
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/1672/bab5.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:38 PDT