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I understand wanting to protect the country from terrorists, but the regulations are going to decrease travel to the US. Right now, we're getting a lot of Europeans coming over to take advantage of the weak dollar. This is a terrible idea to tick off Europe.
As one who flies internationally a lot, I must say that "Air Marshals" are quite common on foreign carriers. If you want to see security in action, fly El Al.
I have no problem with increased use of Air Marshal on American flaged carriers.
I also do not have any problem with the flight deck crew being armed
International tourism into the US brings in somewhere between $50 and $75 billion into the US economy each year in direct spending, depending on how you classify tourist arrivals vs. part-time residents and that sort of thing.
After taking a sharp hit from 2001 to 2003, those numbers rebounded and have increased modestly.
However, they have not kept pace with the growth of worldwide tourism, which has taken off explosively. Many people in countries WITH the visa waiver program are afriad that hostile US border agents will arbitrarily "throw them in jail" or otherwise hassle them. As a result, the US misses out on quite a large revenue stream from tourism that is going to other countries ranging from Canada and Mexico to Thailand and Australia.
These measures would make things quite a lot worse for the US tourist industry. The European press has been rather scathing about them. They haven't been implemented yet, but if they were implemented in full, Americans working in the international tourist industry may want to start looking for other lines of work.
The problem is, measures like these are not merely limited to tourism. There are already reports about the number of highly-skilled professionals and foreign students leaving the US due to what they feel are onerous or hostile border and residency requirements. There are now more Chinese foreign students studying in European universities than American ones, which is quite a reversal from only a few years ago, when American universities were seen as the pinnacle of world education in China, and India as well.
This is unfortunate when you think about the massive boost the US economy has gotten from foreign nationals choosing to start companies in the US rather than their home countries.
It really doesn't matter if we think these measures are isolationist. What matters economically is whether or not the rest of the world thinks so. And increasingly, it does.
Especially in a time like this when our economic performance is slackening, this isn't a very smart measure. You have to think about what is deterred when measures like this come into effect. You don't just deter tourism; you deter present and future investment in the country that would otherwise be brought by foreigners who find America a friendly place to settle and start a business.
The other problem is that these measures don't actually increase our safety, for a lot of different reasons. Think of it this way - had these measures been in place in 2000, would any of the Sept. 11 hijackers have been prevented from coming to the US? These were mostly Saudi students on student visas. They didn't arrive through visa waiver; they did it the old-fashioned way with visas and from a country whose nationals were scrutinized even back then. But since they had no record of militant group involvement, and kept things quiet, it didn't matter.
Also - and I'm going to put this bluntly - at some point, even if you could eliminate all threat of terrorism through draconian isolationist measures, it wouldn't be worth the economic cost. If we have to take a few hits to maintain the strength and appeal of our economy to folks around the world, perhaps that's more than worth it.
Think of it this way - we could probably reduce auto fatalities from 44,000 per year to only a few hundred per year by putting the speed limit at 25mph and grinding up all the roads so that this limit was self-enforcing. But the economic costs would be outrageous, and so we accept that innocent blood will be lost for the sake of expediency.
Perhaps El Al should come and train our pilots & air marshals for plane protection.
One thing you really need to think about: you have to have very stable people in those jobs and they have to be able to use the weapon. Otherwise, they could endanger people by freezing when the need came. I am sure there are more than enough people for the jobs.
However, they have not kept pace with the growth of worldwide tourism, which has taken off explosively. Many people in countries WITH the visa waiver program are afriad that hostile US border agents will arbitrarily "throw them in jail" or otherwise hassle them.
Have you gone through british customs? GOOD GOD. I've been through misc customs before in other countries, but the british just pound you. I was there for 5-10 minutes getting virtually interrogated by the guy before I was allowed in. Back in the US waiting in the customs line there, the one young lady was saying how she actually broke down crying because of how ruthless they are. Crazy. The american image is significantly diffrent than the fact.
Every time I'm on a plane I always picture some guy running toward the cockpit. Then I see the guy getting stomped to death by several passengers.
I'm not saying these lunatics will never incorporate planes into there plans again, I'm just saying I don't think passengers are gonna sit back and let someone take over a plane like they did on 9/11.
I see nothing wrong with keeping foreigners out of the U.S.
Including Tourists?
What about Americans going to visit other countries? Would you prohibit that?
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