Here’s a disturbing trend, and something to add to the long list of things that this country will have to undo when Bush is finally out of office: International travelers are looking for ways to avoid stopovers in the U.S. because of the frustrating, belittling, and bully-like treatment they receive at the hands of Homeland Security officials looking for possible "terrorists" (i.e., any kind of potential criminal).

Wikitravel even has a page devoted to the topic. An excerpt:

Anyone arriving into the United States or one of its territories (like Puerto Rico) and not covered by the Visa Waiver Program requires at least a C1 transit visa to transit the airport. This can be expensive and time-consuming to obtain, and you can be denied the visa: the requirements are the same as the full B-2 tourist visa. If you arrive without this visa and aren’t eligible for a waiver, even for a fuel stop or transit, you will be sent home and recorded as having been denied entry to the US.

The United States does not allow sterile transit, which means that even if you have an immediate connecting flight, you have to pass through Customs and Immigration. This is time-consuming and tedious (4 hours or more is recommended to be safe), and all travellers transiting in the USA using either a transit visa or the Visa Waiver Program will be photographed and fingerprinted.

You can see why people would want to avoid an episode of US Security Theater. Boing Boing had a story the other day about a Finnish folk band that was detained for the crime of having flown in from Amsterdam. From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune comes the details:

Erkki Maattanen, a filmmaker for Finnish Public Television who accompanied the musicians on the September trip, said his questioners seemed to think the entourage was smuggling drugs or intending to work without a permit. "I kept trying to tell them why we were here, but they’d just yell, ‘Shut up!"’ he said.

and

"They threatened us with severe punishments if we talk to each other," according to the complaint signed by musicians Ninni Poijärvi and Mika Kuokkanen, "Through the walls, I can hear officers yelling, screaming. They ask about the purpose of our trip — except we are only allowed to give yes-or-no answers. I try to talk about our plans to meet with Finnish-American folk musicians. Nobody listens. They interrupt me constantly and they yell, ‘You are a liar!"’

The sad thing is, none of these tactics help keep anyone more secure. All it does is tick people off, hurt business here, and make things tougher for everyone. Soon after 9/11 I flew. We all looked at the extra security measures as something understandable and appropriate. But now I realize how foolish and wasteful they are.

The fact is, if terrorists wanted to hit us again, it’s not going to be that hard. Heck, drive a small car bomb through the doors of a mall. Or open up with a hail of bullets outside an airport terminal.

The key point to remember is that the aim of terrorism isn’t to kill people — that’s just icing on the cake. The aim is to scare people. And it’s working.