April 07, 2009

Horse 978 - A Waiver of Logic



Perhaps commonsense has finally prevailed with the United States this week announcing a formal end to it's Visa Waiver Programme. Whilst things is going to make things slightly more difficult in terms of actually getting into the country, I think that this is going to put an end to the floods of laughter at US Customs officers. Just take a look at two questions in particular from the famous United States Visa Waiver Programme - Form I-94W

B - Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude or a violation related to a controlled substance; or have been arrested or convicted for two or more offenses for which the aggregate sentance to confinement was five years or more; or have been a controlled substance trafficker; or are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities ?

Assuming that you had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude, would you be intelligent enough to know what moral turpitude actually is?

Would you actually tell the United States Government that you were intending to engage in anything criminal? Hmm.
Dear United States Government I intend to rob houses, commit flagrant public disorder and attempt to blow up the White House.
It's simply not going to happen is it?

But the question that really amuses me is this:

C - Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved; in any way in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?

Let's just assume for a second that you were 18 at the end of 1945. The youngest possible age to have actually been engaged in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies - that would mean that you were born in 1927, and therefore be 82 years old now. Does the US Government really think that an 82 person poses any sort of threat to them?

Also, what happens to those people who are employed by an organisation like ASIO or MI6 and are employed to commit espionage or sabotage? Legally they wouldn't be able to tell you if they were because they'd be subject to their home countries Secret Service Legislation. And again, if you were a terrorist with the intent of committing "terror" within the United States, do they really expect you to tell them "I am a terrorist?"

I wonder if this truly is a case of a government form that having once been created was never ever changed again. Have they printed so many of these as to supply the Dept of Homeland Security until the year 2158? I bet that there's a warehouse in somewhere like Normal, Illinois, that has millions of these things in pallets arranged five stories tall.

Or maybe, just maybe, someone has actually bothered to read a government form for the first time in 30 years and decided that Form I-94W constitutes a crime of logic turpitude.

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