Tue, 18 Nov 2008
Without Visa?
Today's newspapers are full of articles commenting the fact that Czech citizens now can travel to the U.S. without visa, and taking it as a big achievement of Czech politicians. Having gone through the U.S. visa procedure myself recently, I wonder why no journalist pointed out the sad truth, that in fact, the visa procedure is still there.
The meaning of the phrase "not needing visa" for me is being able to decide to cross the border at any time in any country, and equipped just with the passport being able to appear in front of the passport officer, who in turn should immediately be able to decide whether to allow me in or not (possibly asking some trivial questions like whether I want to work in his country or in which hotel I want to stay).
But the current procedure is still the same visa procedure as before (including lots of big-brotherish questions and gathering of personal data). The only differences are that it takes only three days to validate the request instead of a month, it can be filled in online instead of in the U.S. embassy, and it requires a biometric passport (big brother again). And probably the immigration clerk would check the passengers without visa more thoroughly (at least this is how it has been a month ago when I travelled to Portland).
So nothing to see here (definitely no material for the front pages of the newspapers), move along.
5 replies for this story:
petr_p wrote:
I suggest to see interview with U.S. ambassador in Czech Republic in `Události, komentáře' . It's big diplomat because he talked all the time however didn't answer for such questions you placed here. Or maybe he was just tired due to late time ;)
petr_p wrote: URL
The URL is [http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/vysilani/1096898594-udalosti-komentare/208411000371017-17.10.2008-22:30-po-pozaru-do-usa-bez-viz.html]. (Your system seems disliking angle brackets.)
Milan Zamazal wrote:
I think there's another difference: you don't have to pay for the procedure, right? Combined with the fact that you don't have to travel to Prague at a defined day, waiting a queue there and talking to an officer this means significantly less burden. The biometric password requirement is actually no additional gathering of data: They take photo of you and your fingerprints when you enter U.S. So yes, you provide personal data etc., but the procedure is cheaper and easier.
Yenya wrote:
Yes, it is cheaper and easier (and collects as much data as the visa procedure). So I would not call it "visa-less".
ppp wrote:
AFAIK, it collects even more data than the visa procedure.