[angkor]

The government has been tracking us for some time now,again,nothing new.

In what fashion has the USG been tracking us?

Not too long ago I traveled through Europe, and came back to the USA with not a single visa stamp in my passport. And no one asked me where I had been.(Granted that my flight to and from Paris was part of the USG manifest).

I've also traveled through many countries in SE Asia, and the most I was ever asked on my return to the US was which country I had just come from.

Unless you're positing that foreign country passenger manifests for boat, train, bus, and air - in addition to foreign visas - have secretly been transmitted to the USG "for some time now", then you are wrong.

I find this new requirement to be an absolute and dangerous intrusion on privacy, and a violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me there is no fundamental difference between one's travels overseas and one's travels within the USA.

Pretty soon we'll be getting exit visa (a feature of countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Saudi) and carrying national IDs for travel between American states.

[pepsionice]

And after one fills out this form...where will it go? My guess is some massive database run by the cheapest contractor to the government possible. They will never do backups of the hard drive. They will rarely input the data correctly into the system. They will continually talk about the need for better software which they want to develop...which will only cost the government $200 million....but it is never fully developed or delivered.

What I am waiting for is when they ask for an entire iteneary. And I will start by stating that I had a liasion with Jennifer Lopez in Paris, and then met Pete Rose while vacationing along the coast of Spain. I'm sure they will love my entire story. We might have some fictional trips brewing with the help of the US government.