Thread: Homeland Security, is it going too far?

I've just got a weird sensse of humor lol. I was at Sunday School when I was younger, and the topic was "Confusion in the Church".....I looked at the teacher and asked, "what would it be in the Catholic Church?" (no offense to our Catholic members)...it caught him offguard so he replied "I don't know....." and I deadpanned "Mass Confusion".

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

And whoever said I was wrong about the visa waiver program needs to realize that the key word here is visitor whether it be pleasure or business which she was not. This may seem like an easy distinction but by law it is not. Nothing in Immigration law is easy.

That would be me, can elaborate on this I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by saying she wasn't a visitor ?

Your original post made it sound like you couldn't do any business on the visa waiver program and I was just clarifying was that you can enter the US for the purpose of business using the visa waiver program (at least if you are a citizen of countries taking part in the program such as the UK), it is just that journalism is specifically excluded.

Barney

I think the story went almost exactly the way she describes it. Journalists are not stupid and they try to report facts very close to thier own interpretation of them.

At best I would think she only left out a few details to ensure that you took her side of the story.

You have to learn to read into these journalistic stories to get the other viewpoint.

The part where she says "once again, they asked me just who I was going to interview" (and I'm paraphrasing) leads me to think that she wasn't being direct and forthright when the impression she wants to portrait is that she was being interrogated. Its these subtle little differences, based on her sensitivity, that make it a good story, with questionable reality.

So, being one of 14 journalists in the last few years (or year) that were stopped for this failure to receive a journalistic Visa I think the key is that she wants us to feel like this is very likely to happen to anyone and it wasn't because she was some idiot.

My favorite part, in her favor, was that (according to her) the interview lasted 3 hours. Now that is one long interview for a journalist. I feel sorry for the lady, ignorant as she is. Again, mostly because she is just being dumb and twidling her way into the U.S. and thinking "La de da, time for another interview in America"

Imagine when she finally got home and said to the Editor, "sorry, I didn't get the story", and they decided to write a story about her entry experience instead. She had to write a story about something.

And no, its not "Welcome to America" anymore. Its "Your No Longer Welcome"

I just hope more people read the article and realize just how serious these customs guys get. They don't play games anymore.

I'm following this (edit: and am staying out of it) but will say that I disagree with the term "Homeland" on basic principle. Seems a bit fascist to me.

Originally Posted by barneycg

That would be me, can elaborate on this I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by saying she wasn't a visitor ?

Your original post made it sound like you couldn't do any business on the visa waiver program and I was just clarifying was that you can enter the US for the purpose of business using the visa waiver program (at least if you are a citizen of countries taking part in the program such as the UK), it is just that journalism is specifically excluded.

Barney

The law provides for specific visa's for different purposes. First there are nonimmigrant visa's and then there are immigrant visa's. Immigrant for people planning on staying permanently and residing here. The nonimmigrant classifications are divided into various categories. Journalists are expected to come with the I visa plain and simple. Tourist visa's or if your from the correct country and can qualify for the visa waiver program is limited to tourism either for pleasure or business. Of course business or pleasure is a catch all and almost everything could be considered "visitor" but by law there are a whole set of tests to determine if you are a visitor or something else. She was a something else.

Oh, and to those who feel its no big deal joking about a bomb or hijacking at the airport and can't understand why someone who does that isn't treated with kid gloves I'll only tell you as the guy who had to deal with that nonsense I never did appreciate after working a 12 hour shift being called out at 3AM because some ticket agent or security guard heard a couple of people joking about that stuff.