Would-Be Tourists from "Friendly" Countries Must Apply Electronically for Permission to Travel to the U.S.

 The citizens of 36 countries (basically, the nations of western Europe and such other friendly places as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea) don't need visas to enter the United States as short-stay tourists. They don't have to pay the forbidding $140 per person that we charge other foreigners simply to apply for a visa. And that leaves those lucky supporters of the U.S. utterly free to visit the U.S.A., doesn't it?
 
It doesn't. Unknown to most Americans, the citizens of those 36 visa-waiver countries need to file an English-language, computer-generated, electronic request to visit the U.S. -- something known as an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) -- on the eve of any trip here. And they have wait for an official response of approval before they can actually board the plane to come here. They must also pay $14 while doing so.
 
And what does their ESTA request consist of? It involves filling out a comprehensive questionnaire, in which the applicant answers such questions as to whether they are a terrorist or other known criminal, whether they have ever been accused of fraud, whether they suffer from a communicable disease or from mental or physical disorders, the address where they will be staying in the U.S., and so on. The questionnaires are uploaded to the Department of Homeland Security, which obviously lacks the resources to ascertain the validity of these answers. It is obvious that the 19 hijackers of planes that flew into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, could in an hour's work, have responded to that questionnaire in a manner that would not have aroused the slightest suspicion.
 
It will take you at least a half hour, provided you're a fast reader and totally fluent in English, to read the explanation of the application that appears on the official website of the ESTA program ( https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ ). It will take you at least another half hour, perhaps longer, to fill out the application. And applications, obviously, require not simply an understanding of English but some ease with use of a computer, which doubtless many would-be visitors fail to have (they can, of course, enlist a relative or friend to help them with the burdensome questionnaire).
 
And now consider the job of reviewing these questionnaires. Even at the depressed level of foreign visitors to the U.S., several tens of thousands of such ESTA's must reach the Department of Homeland Security each day. Who reads them? Who analyzes them? Has the Department hired the several hundred employees needed to examine the applications?
 
"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," are the words of the ancient Latin adage. It is simply loony to believe, in my opinion, that the Electronic System for Travel Authorization helps protect the United States, impedes a single would-be terrorist from coming here. Yet Congress passed the measure and the Department of Homeland Security seeks to implement it.
 
Imagine if you were compelled to fill our a questionnaire in French upon contemplating a visit to France. How many would-be visitors to France would be deterred from attempting the trip?
 
The new tourist agency assigned to increase tourism to the U.S. would be well advised to petition members of Congress to repeal this ill-considered measure. It is an exercise in folly, an example of shooting oneself in the foot, on the part of a nation that could benefit tremendously from the billions of dollars in income that additional incoming tourism could bring, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of additional jobs that increased tourism would generate.
 
(And by the way, if a name check of the questionnaire could enable the Department of Homeland Security to prohibit travel by a person on the no-fly list, that information is already available to the government when the airlines submit their passenger lists to the relevant authorities).
 
The effect of ESTA? It is to bewilder or intimidate a great many would-be visitors to the U.S. It is, again, an exercise in sheer folly.