6 ms·

I hope at least Western Europe reciprocates quickly (targeting American visitors). Comparably annoying American citizens may be the best method to stop this mad

• quirkot 9y ago
  Can we leave the innocent bystanders out of this? As a US citizen this new rule is garbage
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • AHatLikeThat 9y ago
    Indeed, as a US citizen it is obvious this policy will soon be expanded to everyone.
  • kbart 9y ago
    As US citizens you (collectively) knowingly voted for government that implemented such laws and it is up to you to vote for government that doesn't pass such insane laws. So sorry, you are not a bystander here; I'd say equally demeaning and annoying border controls for US citizens in other countries would be logical consequences one could expect.
    • quirkot 9y ago
      This is not a law, it's a regulation, developed by a governmental body whose head is appointed. There is no Senator a small fish like me can call to stop this madness
      • kbart 9y ago
        I'm not much into US politics, but as far as I understand, Trump was personally involved in many recent bans/regulations. Furthermore, isn't that "head" appointed by president, senate or other elected governmental body?
        • tomp 9y ago
          Also, this started before Trump, so democrats don't get a pass.
        • tdb7893 9y ago
          The increase in weird border controls actually started under Obama. There's really no winning in American politics when it comes to sensible regulation or immigration policies. Trump is mainly just responsible for the recent "travel bans" and also the decrease of legal immigration
    • belorn 9y ago
      Insane border laws has been consecutive added by the US for the last 16 years ever since 9/11. It would be nice if the trend could be reversed.
      • kbart 9y ago
        I didn't say it has happened overnight. The idea doesn't change.
    • Spivak 9y ago
      Yeah, let's completely ignore the 193 million people that disapprove of our current government. To put this in perspective if the number of people that disapprove of Trump were a country it would be 7th largest in the world.
      • dmschulman 9y ago
        they should have voted.
        • dekhn 9y ago
          He lost the popular vote. But we have this weird weighting scheme favoring empty states.
    • Thriptic 9y ago
      Actually collectively we voted against the government. Trump lost the popular vote but won specific states which is how he got elected.
      • UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
        Obama started this policy, Trump just continued it. It is very easy to point fingers at one figure or political party, in this case though the waters have been slowly rising since 9/11 through Bush Jr, Obama, and now Trump. Until American citizens are impacted (either through loss of tourism money or more directly) I don't see much happening.
      • TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Still, it's your and only your job to undo this.
    • cgmg 9y ago
      > As German citizens you German Jews (collectively) knowingly voted for government that implemented such anti-semitic laws and it is up to you to vote for government that doesn't pass such insane laws. Yes, I went there. What kind of insane guilt-attribution system makes the parent commenter (and all others who dissent) responsible for the actions of the US government?
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  • ptero 9y ago
    As another US citizen I also agree that this new rule is garbage. The way to stop it is to apply pressure to the rule makers. They still work for us (although most of the time it does not feel this way), so the constituents must tell rule makers to change stupid rules. Otherwise they are not innocent bystanders anymore. And nowadays the constituents will not care unless they feel the pain. We all are "too busy" (at least I know that I am) unless our own relatives have to give out logins while going abroad. I wish it was not this way, but this is the way it is today :(
  • dozzie 9y ago
    > As a US citizen this new rule is garbage And this new rule wouldn't be garbage if it wasn't a US citizen?
• matwood 9y ago
  I was just grilled in Munich trying to leave the EU, because when I entered in Athens the person stamping passports didn't care enough to put any ink on the stamp. My point is that the EU is a big place with differing levels of care about what happens at the borders. I doubt all of the EU would/could reciprocate even if they wanted to.
• r3bl 9y ago
  The EU is convincing the USA for years that they should allow visa-free entry to five of its members (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland, Romania). Without concrete actions against the USA, they got nowhere. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/eu-visas-united-states.html?mcubz=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/eu-visas-uni...
• ilyanep 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure there is a very small intersection between the group of Americans who would travel internationally and be annoyed by this and the Americans who support policies like this.
  • misingnoglic 9y ago
    Exactly - the ones who are scared that Iranians are terrorists who should be banned are the same ones who couldn't name 3 cities in Iran.
  • ptero 9y ago
    Yes, but I suspect that the part of the population who supports this policy is small. A much larger part either does not care or dislikes this in general, but not enough to voice their opinion. Reciprocation could help make this majority speak up. Plus, I would not overestimate degrees of separation -- if a friend's granddaughter traveling internationally for a high school trip supplies social account credentials, and those get leaked it is a powerful demonstration of stupid law in action. Having her get a load of humiliating / X-rated junk as a result would I suspect make even a strong supporter rethink his support.
• chriswarbo 9y ago
  That would simply adjust the definition of "normal", since everybody's doing it. For example, it's now "normal" that liquids are banned in airports (except, of course, for those sold at a premium once past "security"; and except for pesto https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/23/genoa-airport-lifts-liquids-ban-for-pesto https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/23/genoa-airport-... ). I think, in general, that it's better to do the opposite: if someone wants to do a stupid thing, make them look as strange as possible; try do the exact opposite thing, so that their rationale (e.g. "otherwise terrorism") is undermined. Plus, of course, that opposite thing might be a good idea on its own.
  • lightbyte 9y ago
    It'd only be "normal" if they did it to everybody. If they specifically targeted American tourists and left everyone else alone I don't think we'd see that problem.
    • conanbatt 9y ago
      There's a story about this that in some airport, they only ask americans to take their shoes off. If airports around the world required that for all domestic flights on americans, I think that you say would happen quickly.
• Gys 9y ago
  Only 36% of the Americans has a valid passport: https://matadornetwork.com/life/64-americans-never-left-u-s/ https://matadornetwork.com/life/64-americans-never-left-u-s/
  • rdtsc 9y ago
    We've talked about this before many times, but as a person who used to live in Europe I never quite understood why Americans don't have a national ID. Maybe something with a chip, anything better than a social security number basically. Make it free so anyone can get it. I've heard all kinds of reasons to not have IDs they don't make sense - IDs are racist apparently, or some kind of a right wing conspiracy about government controlling people. Many other countries seems to manage with national IDs, some are more poor, some just as technologically advanced.
    • deadmetheny 9y ago
      Lots of Americans don't understand it, either. Any national ID system get shot down because of some variation on 'left-wing government overreach', so we get the current crappy system where each individual state has its own identification card.
      • neo4sure 9y ago
        It's also a great way to deny voting for minorities. I suspect this is the major reason for not having an identity system.
        • rdtsc 9y ago
          India and developing countries managed to have national IDs and here it's some kind of major issue. Is the argument that minorities are incompetent or just poor and can't get IDs if they want to vote? I think if they are free to get there should be no issue denying voting to anyone?
          • 9y ago
• rdtsc 9y ago
  I remember when Brazil did that with respect to fingerprinting. They started scanning fingerprints because US starting doing it to the Brazilian citizens when they arrived in US. Didn't follow the story after but annoying citizens of the other country by reciprocating in-like is a common strategy. Onerous visa requirements or moving from requiring to not requiring visas is also done.
• temuze 9y ago
  Brazil does tit-for-tat and practices complete reciprocity :) Shortly after 9/11, the USA required Brazilian tourists to use a fingerprint scanner. A Brazilian judge made a rule for American tourists to do the same: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/world/us-and-brazil-fingerprinting-is-it-getting-out-of-hand.html?mcubz=1&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/world/us-and-brazil-finger... It was a huge mess at first because Brazil hadn't required any other countries to do it in the past. I suspect that customs threw away the fingerprints at first (it was done with ink originally), but it's done digitally nowadays. Brazil does this for all countries. American tourists, for example, have to pay $100 for a visa because Brazilians need to do the same in the U.S. To this day, it's considerably easier for Europeans to enter Brazil than Americans. While the U.S. hasn't rescinded the fingerprint law (that I know of), it's possible this policy prevented escalation...
  • astronautjones 9y ago
    the visa fee for US to Argentina is very similar, and they go out of their way to let you know it's because of the US's stupid policy towards them
• benevol 9y ago
  It's really "funny" how quickly this post got flagged down on HN. Some VCs, tech people, etc. who make money from immigrants are going into panic mode.