Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
June 5, 2008 at 11:49
filed under art+design+technology, rant, travel
Forget the fact that you don’t get any food anymore, or a pillow or blanket for that matter. Forget that you need to pay to bring bags with you – who needs those when you travel anyhow? Forget the surcharges airlines are imposing since they are all running deficits due to the price of oil. Forget all these, and focus on the following gems that will make all of our lives much more complicated when we choose to travel by air; frequent flyer/upgrader, business class or peasant of the back rows.
Firstly, this gem found in the Vancouver Sun:
The [Canadian] federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws which could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers or other personal electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the difficulty of travelling with such devices.
[...]
The deal would create a international regulator that could turn border guards and other public security personnel into copyright police. The security officials would be charged with checking laptops, iPods and even cellular phones for content that “infringes” on copyright laws, such as ripped CDs and movies.
Imagine, now we’ll have some border guards going through my 80 GB iPod, 140 GB MacBook Pro, my several GBs of memory for my cameras, etc… and trying to determine if any of the content is illegal. That’ll speed up the process greatly and make my trip more enjoyable now won’t it. Or better yet, if the federal Conservatives have already got you with this other gem, you might be in a database that will identify you to the border guards and make their job easier.
The federal Conservatives are set to introduce new copyright legislation as soon as this week that will include provisions to target users with a $500 fine for all illegal files transferred online, a move that legal experts say could see Canadians sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars if found guilty of infringement.
All the help needed will be welcomed as this incredible BBC piece highlights:
A man wearing a T-shirt depicting a cartoon character holding a gun was stopped from boarding a flight by the security at Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
Of course wearing this is a security risk, why even question it? Not satisfied with dictating how we should dress on our flights, here’s the last gem of this edition of ‘Flying Pleasures’, this time brought to you by the US Department of Homeland Security:
Visitors to the United States – not including Canadians, at least initially – will need to fill out online forms with personal biographical details at least three days before they arrive, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced yesterday.
The new rules [...] are designed to track and intercept terrorists and others on American watch lists.
They will go into effect Jan. 12, 2009.
Can you say ‘Home sweet Home’?
Comments are closed.
Colin
Phew – I thought I was alone on the `ever increasingly scary World of paranoia that we live in` blog writer category…
Thank heavens there is one more!
Copyright Criminal | Thought Patterns
on August 30, 2011 at 09:59
[...] wrote about this over a week ago but it has since hit the front page of all of Canada’s major newspapers: the [...]