US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has expanded its photography of the faces of all non-US citizens entering or leaving the US (under the “US-VISIT” program) to add mug shots of US citizens leaving the country, starting with all passengers on a daily flight on United Airlines from Washington Dulles Airport (IAD) to Dubai, U.A.E. […]
The Department of State has requested “emergency” approval from the Office of Management and Budget for a new questionnaire which some applicants for U.S. visas would be required to complete. The questions on the proposed new “long form” for disfavored visa applicants would include: Travel history during the last fifteen years, including source of funding […]
[Guest commentary by Rep. Chris Tuck, Majority Leader in the Alaska House of Representatives, published in the Alaska Dispatch News, Fairbanks News-Miner, Juneau Empire, Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, and Alaska Journal of Commerce] I am disappointed that the Administration of [Alaska Governor] Walker has given in to the fear tactics and misinformation of the Department of […]
We’ll be testifying (by teleconference) at hearings today in the Senate State Affairs Committee (3:30 p.m. ADT) and House State Affairs Committee (5:30 p.m. ADT) of the Alaska State Legislature on three state bills related to Alaska’s response to the Federal REAL-ID Act of 2005: SB34: Implementation of the federal REAL ID Act of 2005 […]
San Francisco and Silicon Valley are among the centers of opposition to President Trump and his fascism, especially as it relates to restrictions on movement, border controls, immigration, and asylum. Bay Area technology companies and their better-paid classes of employees like to think of themselves as building a better world that reflects the distinctive values […]
Our work is cited in an article today by Kaveh Waddell in The Atlantic, “How Long Can Border Agents Keep Your Email Password? Some data gathered from travelers going through customs can stay in a Homeland Security database for 75 years.” The article in The Atlantic highlights several recent incidents in which international travelers have […]
Legislation has been introduced in both the USA and Belgium to subject rail travelers to the same sorts of travel surveillance schemes that are already being used to monitor and control air travelers. If these proposals are enacted into law, passenger railroads would be required to collect and enter additional information such as passport or […]
We got a pleasant surprise this week: a phone call from Eric F. Stein, the head of the State Department’s FOIA-processing office. Mr. Stein’s name and signature appeared on a bizarre letter we received last month, telling us that one of the unanswered Freedom Of Information Act requests we’d been bugging the State Department about for […]
In the latest episode of the FOIA follies, we recently received a bizarre letter letter from the U.S. State Department asking us whether we are “still interested” in receiving a response to one of several of our requests for State Department records that have each gone unanswered for more than five years. The Department of […]
It’s not a crime to flee from persecution, to try to get to a place of refuge, or to apply for asylum once you get there. The case of a man who walked 30 miles from France to England through the tunnel under the Channel shows how wrong-headed restrictions on airlines, railroads, ferry operators, and […]