Until recent heavy pressure from the US Congress, Saudi Arabia had a fast track for US Visas. All you had to do was talk to your travel agent and everything was sorted. Of course you had to make other arrangements for your AK47 and explosives, but what the hey?
Meanwhile, Marcelo Tosatti, a top Brazilian Computer Scientist with Connectiva, the current maintainer of the Linux 2.4 Stable kernel and the resident of a free democratic country that doesn’t treat women like excrement, is banned from entry. In his words:
I wouldn’t avoid going into the United States because of the DMCA, but I can’t go there anyway. I went into the United States for business on a B1 tourist visa, by mistake. I’ve been doing it for a long time, I never thought about it. They turned me away, I had to turn around and fly back. Before they always let me into the country on this visa, but after September 11 they’re more paranoid.
It’s not a big deal, with the B2 (business) visa you just have to pay $40. But now I can’t go into America.
Yep, that’s the way to do it. Keep out those pesky well paid computer geeks from friendly democratic countries. You just can’t tell what they might get up to.
