Find The Boots

I just posted a "plain" post over at FlyerTalk about tourism and business travel down in the US over security issues. You can read the article here if you like.

I think my reaction is mixed as you never like the idea of:

The World Travel Market 2006 report -- conducted by Euromonitor International -
found that total business arrivals to the United States fell by 10 percent to 7 million over the 2004-2005 period, while the number of the business visitors to Europe grew by 8 percent to 84 million over the same period.

losing 700K visitors to the US and all the money they spend. That's the downside.

But, frankly, how many of them were disappearing visitors? You know, the ones who show up for a weekend in Vegas and never check in with Immigration again? That's the upside.

I am voting for the upside. My personal preference would be a required web login every five days or so for any visitor to the US using their visa number. Then if they're ever picked up it would be easy for the cops to spot someone not following the rules.

I'm a little sensitive to foreigners in the country illegally, not being where they're supposed to be, and doing who knows what.

I'm sure CAIR, the ACLU, and gosh-knows-who-else will be against this idea. And there is probably some violation of Federal Web-Browser Cookie Rights in there somewhere. But I think it's pretty basic to ask visitors to check in.....