New U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations took effect this month that combine two bad ideas — fees to encourage foreigners to visit the US by charging them more to do so, and fees for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) — in a way that creates new possibilities for travel surveillance and […]
According to a recently-released European Commission staff working document, the U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) is not “tantamount to the … visa … process” required for admission to the European “Schengen Zone”, and therefore does not give cause for the imposition of reciprocal visa requirements for US citizens seeking to enter Schengen countries. […]
In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register on June 9, 2008 (73 Federal Register 32440-32453), the Department of Homeland Security has proposed a new system for foreign citizens intending to visit the U.S without visas, and to enter the U.S. by air or sea, to apply for and receive an additional […]
The case of Rutgers University professor Mark Bray and his family provides an object lesson in the importance of being able to travel anonymously, and how the practices of governments and airlines endanger travelers by making them identifiable. Dr. Bray, his partner Dr. Yesenia Barragan (also a professor at Rutgers), and their two young children […]
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced plans for changes to its procedures for processing information sent to CBP by airlines (and possibly also train, bus, and ferry operators) about passengers on international routes with non-binary or non-gendered “X” gender marker passports, to take effect on Tuesday, October 12, 2025. The planned changes were […]
How can your movements be tracked? The Penlink surveillance company counts some of the ways: Penlink was brought to our attention by a report from Joseph Cox in 404 Media that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the US Department of Homeland security (DHS) is entering into a contract with Penlink as a […]
New tools deployed and offered to law enforcement agencies by Flock Safety, the largest US aggregator of automated license plate reader (ALPR) data from both government and private cameras, are moving Flock from data mining into profiling and pre-crime predictive policing. This marks the expansion to road travel of the profiling and predictive policing that […]
Tourists and business visitors to the US from most of the world will have to pay additional fees or post bonds of from $250 to $15,000 per person — over and above the current $185 per person visa fee — under provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act enacted last month and separate regulations […]
Recent events have focused attention on the asymmetry of police demands for ID: Government agents demand that ordinary citizens provide evidence of our identity, even when we are exercising rights — such as traveling by common carrier — that don’t depend on our identity. But those same government agents typically refuse to provide the same […]
Late yesterday President Trump proclaimed a new ban on entry to the US or issuance of new US visas to citizens of twelve countries, and ordered drastic restrictions on entry or issuance of visas to citizens of seven others. The US has long sought to globalize its surveillance and control of travelers. In the past, […]