Coming to America? What's your sex life like?

[kestra]

In short, when you behave like an unreasonable, rabid anti-American often enough, you shouldn't be surprised when people default to assuming that's what you're doing - or read otherwise ambiguous posts in that light, Kestra.

I'm not unreasonable. I simply disagree.

It's not so much your statements as Kestra's habitual and intellectually shallow ripping on American officials/government that we take as indication that "complaining about the U.S." is going on. To wit, from Kestra's first post:

The "ripping" as you like to phrase it, shall continue on American officials.

"I'm certain that American society will become a better place, if you all can just be paranoid about everything and everybody."

I hate it when my sarcasm gets lost on people.

[Darion]

Originally posted by kestra
I'm not unreasonable. I simply disagree.

The "ripping" as you like to phrase it, shall continue on American officials.

This is why no one tends to take you seriously. 'I'm not unreasonable, but I'm going to keep bashing American officials'? How can you even say that with a straight face?

[Graeblyn]

Originally posted by Kraxe
I know it was over 8 months ago that this was all in the news (I try to keep up with UK/Europe news), and there was a request for all kinds of information collected on passengers flying to the US to be provided to US authorities. It caused a fairly huge disagreement between the EU and the US and threatened to stop flights to the US (some agreement had to be renegotiated and this was the sticking point). It took them a while to hammer out an agreement, but something was reached, what I do not know. And no, I don’t have sources, this is just from memory. As for the EU ‘wanting’ to give this information up, I don’t think so. As I said, some form of compromise was apparently reached.

However, despite my hilarious earlier post, I do not know what (and if any extra) information regarding sexual information was ever requested. I only know that the request was in such a form that refusal was not really an option.

As I recall, (this was indeed big news months ago), the US wanted the sex information to help them enforce the provision of U.S. law that bans HIV-positive foreigners from entering the country for visits. I think the belief of most news pundits was that the US wants to use sex information to profile which visitors should get more scrutiny in terms of being a possible violator of the HIV+ travel ban.

[kestra]

it's perfectly reasonable to "bash", as you call it, elected officials.
You may disagree with my reasons, however that does not make me unreasonable.

[Jidoe]

Originally posted by kestra
it's perfectly reasonable to "bash", as you call it, elected officials.
You may disagree with my reasons, however that does not make me unreasonable.

I agree it's perfectly reasonable to "bash". It's perfectly reasonable in any other forum, but Threshold's.

Why you ask? Because debates here are a little more mature than your average forum debate. People here want to hear real reasons and facts, not "bashes".

[kestra]

Why you ask? Because debates here are a little more mature than your average forum debate.

That's a matter of opinion.

[Aristotle]

So it basically went like this:

USA: Hey Europe. When your people fly to our country, we need information about them so we can cross-check it with our watch lists. Ok?

EC: Sure. Here you go.

USA: Woah. We were expecting names, employment history, residence, that sort of stuff. We really don't need to know that John Doe likes to be spanked.

EC: Well, that's the way we gather information about our people. Take it or leave it.

USA: Ok, well if that's the only way we can get information about passengers, I guess we'll take it.

Now, how is it the United States fault, and how is the USA in any way to blame, for the fact that the EC supplied the USA with Too Much Information?

They did not request the information. They requested OTHER, more benign information, and simply got more than they asked for.

The USA has a lot of problems right now with invading people's privacy... some VERY SERIOUS problems. But this sure as heck doesn't sound like one of them. This sounds like a 100% EC problem.

The funniest thing about this whole thread is that Kestra obviously did not read the article, placed blame in the wrong place, but is too stubborn to just laugh it off with a "mea culpa" and move on.

[kestra]

The funniest thing about this whole thread is that Kestra obviously did not read the article, placed blame in the wrong place, but is too stubborn to just laugh it off with a "mea culpa" and move on.

What's funnier still is despite admitting that the EC authored the information, people still cling to the notion that I believe the US did.
The US DHS is going to use this information, and it's going to be abused in one manner or another, be it another method of racial profiling, or otherwise.

[Graeblyn]

Originally posted by Aristotle
So it basically went like this:




Now, how is it the United States fault, and how is the USA in any way to blame, for the fact that the EC supplied the USA with Too Much Information?

They did not request the information. They requested OTHER, more benign information, and simply got more than they asked for.

The USA has a lot of problems right now with invading people's privacy... some VERY SERIOUS problems. But this sure as heck doesn't sound like one of them. This sounds like a 100% EC problem.

The funniest thing about this whole thread is that Kestra obviously did not read the article, placed blame in the wrong place, but is too stubborn to just laugh it off with a "mea culpa" and move on.

Passenger Name Record system (or PNR) isn't a government database. It's a resource gathered by private industry, specifically airlines. This is explained a bit in this article about the controversy:
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0707/070607e1.htm

The DHS says it wants this data for the following reason, as quoted from an official in the article:
"PNR data is primarily collected to protect against terrorism and serious international crime," the official said. "PNR data is not used or shared for purposes other than that under which it was collected."

Now, whether you are a Republican, Democrat, American or not, I think we can all agree that the DHS doth protest too much.

Also, consider for a moment how Americans would feel if Europe pressured the FAA into forcing airlines in the US to allow European law enforcement agencies to rummage through the company databases of the American airlines, with little to no idea what the Europeans want all that access for, or what the legal and privacy ramifications are for American consumers.

Sure Europeans should be angry with their own governments for being so accomodating to the US, but it is certainly fair to be annoyed with the US for wanting to invade people's privacy in this way. It isn't unreasonable to be afraid of what the US will do with this information, especially given the American track record in the last several years.

[Raeghin]

Originally posted by kestra
The US DHS is going to use this information, and it's going to be abused in one manner or another, be it another method of racial profiling, or otherwise.

Along with 'bashing,' this is the kind of conjecture that can lead many forum readers to not take you so seriously, and discredits any good points you might make.

As I read it, you were not being accused of clinging to the idea that the US authored/collected the information. Only that you sarcastically lashed out at the US for taking more information than what was requested in the first place.