Soon you'll be able to roll a bowling ball down Broadway without hitting anything

Go into midtown Manhattan on any nice spring day, or stroll over to Fifth Avenue. Good luck getting through the mobs of tourists, many of them European. And if you have a business that caters to these tourists, enjoy it while you can. Because who on earth would want to travel to a country that does this:

The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines.

The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as "blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's requirements.

According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said.

And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a ticket, a procedure that will take several days.

The data from the US's new electronic transport authorisation system is to be combined with extensive personal passenger details already being provided by EU countries to the US for the "profiling" of potential terrorists and assessment of other security risks.

Washington is also asking European airlines to provide personal data on non-travellers - for example family members - who are allowed beyond departure barriers to help elderly, young or ill passengers to board aircraft flying to America, a demand the airlines reject as "absurd".

As it stands now, the crap you have to go through when traveling even inside the United States as an American citizen has stripped away just about anything that was ever pleasant about travel. Even going to Jamaica isn't as much fun as it used to be because of the hassle of just getting there. If I had to go through what the Bush Administration is asking Europeans to go through in order to travel here I wouldn't even bother -- and I suspect that many Europeans will decide exactly that.

It isn't just every American who's assumed to be a Muslim terrorist until proven otherwise. It's now everyone in the world.

(h/t)