Re: Party planning

On Sat, Aug 06, 2005 at 05:34:20PM -0400, Richard T. Romanik wrote:
>
> There should be no problem getting into the states as long as you have
> the proper paper work.

I will note that I have to agree with Josh here. I hold dual
(US/Can) citizenship, and I still get a hassle at the border every
time I cross. Plus, and I hate to raise this, I'm about as
non-racial-profile-target as you get. One of the folks I work with,
who is originally from India, was once detailed by the TSA and HS
people on the US side. Because under the PATRIOT act, such
detentions are not subject to normal process, he didn't even have a
right to let people know where he was. From the point of view of the
rest of the world, it was as if he'd dropped off the earth.

I am not interested in discussing (either to criticise or praise, at
least in this venue) the US policies: they are what they are. But I
think it a very bad idea to dismiss the potential effects of those
policies when contemplating an international meeting for the
community. (FWIW, the current Government of Canada stance on some of
these items, especially some of their recent announcements, should
give us pause as well.)

That said, I'm willing to do some work here in Toronto on such an
event, if people want to hold it here. But if so, we will need to
make that decision quickly. Toronto has substantially recovered from
its tourism slump of a couple years ago, and summers are tricky to
book again. We'll need to move soon if we're going to do this.

A

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