The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines. The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as “blackmail” and “troublesome”, and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington’s requirements.
According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said. And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a ticket, a procedure that will take several days. Washington is also asking European airlines to provide personal data on non-travellers – for example family members – who are allowed beyond departure barriers to help elderly, young or ill passengers to board aircraft flying to America, a demand the airlines reject as “absurd”. As part of a controversial passenger data exchange programme allegedly aimed at combating terrorism, the EU has for the past few months been supplying the American authorities with 19 items of information on every traveller flying from the EU to the US.
Brussels is pressing European governments not to sign the bilateral deals with the Americans to avoid weakening the EU bargaining position. To European ears, the US demands sound draconian. “This would oblige the European countries to allow US air marshals on US flights. It’s controversial and difficult,” an EU official said. At the moment the use of air marshals is discretionary for European states and airlines. The US Transport Security Administration has also asked the European airlines to supply personal data on “certain non-travelling members of the public requesting access to areas beyond the screening checkpoint”.The AEA said this was “absurd” because the airlines neither obtain nor can obtain such information. The request was “fully unjustified”.
#31 MRN Sadly this is how it is today.
Don’t you just “love” how the Bush government has trampled on most everything the US founding fathers stood for
Cheers
I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.
What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.
Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.
Who says I am not under the special protection of God?
– Adolph Hitler.
Is Bush STILL allowed to touch things?
For crying out loud, lock that monkey in the Whitehouse wine cellar next to Bin Laden’s cage.
#34 brucemlloyd Good post!!
Well that was then, not today…
http://tinyurl.com/bkwsj
Makes you feel all warm inside, huh?
Cheers
Has anyone heard the whispers of a general strike in the US on April 15, 2008? I don’t know if it is serious or not, maybe just some kid’s idea of a good joke.
I can’t believe we (the American people) could pull something like that off! We are so fractious and self-absorbed that if we thought someone we didn’t like was ‘for’ it, they would be ‘against’ it just to spite each other. Sounded like a cool idea though…
#37 MaxMars
What I heard was the US presidential election is being moved forward to April 1st due to its relevancy.
Pedro – Exactly!! What for? Bush was elected not once but twice! Har!
Cheers
Pedro,
I kind of agree with you, I’m not certain what would be the purpose, usually you have to have a popular central figure to ‘call’ for it. I’ll keep sniffing around the web until I find out the source – if there was any.
TIHZ_HO,
Wow! That would be a revealing development. I suppose it could be related to foreign policy, economic policy, governmental structure reform, or one of a million things. I wish I knew.
9/11 was a false flag and I’m glad the EU isn’t going along with this sh**t.
#41 billy,
They may not be going for it now… but who knows with these elitists? They’ve cooked up so many schemes, and have gathered so many media resources, they can sell anything – or so it seems.
BTW – I suspect that 9-11 (among MANY others) was a fabrication. FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Welcome to the ussa, or should I say jewssa.
If the people of this country don`t wake up (hopefully it`s not too late already) then one day soon the good ol` USA will be nothing but a gigantic Palestine.
Now, somebody jog my memory for me. Exactly how many dual American-isreali citizenship politicians and “advisors” to your president are setting your “foreign” and “domestic” policies and writing these absurd, draconian laws in the sacred name of the “war on terror”?
Every decent, good, intelligent American needs to educate themselves about Fortress Americas. That should tell you what`s coming around the corner.
C’mon people. Homeland Security is run by Israel firster, zionst Michael Chertoff, whose mother was a Mossad agent. One of his first acts was to hire the ex-east German Stasi chief, Markus Wolf (now dead and burning in hell, I hope) and the ex-head of the KGB, General Yevgeni Primakov. Our wondrous ZOG has set up a POLICE STATE in waiting. Those two paragons of virtue had the job in their godless, communist (everything state-owned) “homelands” of keeping people IN, not keeping terrorists OUT. Wake up, oh, slumbering sheep. Old Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, etc. must all be spinning in their respective graves. Write your representative and ask it how many foreign troops are occupying American soil just waiting for the next “emergency.” See if you get an straight answer. Foreign troops will be swarming out of their hiding places like cockroaches into the cities as soon as martial law is declared. You can imagine what they’ll be doing to the women and their children, of both sexes. The group in power now will never allow another elcorrputection. There will be another fake terrorist attack and Bush will invoke all of the Acts and “signing statements” over the last eight years since the traitorous Supreme Court selected him el presidente. He will be our glorious dicktator for life.
[Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]