Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are kind of discussing the Orwellian nature of international travel and my hope that it ends sooner rather than later. The reason I thought of making this video, I was reading a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Prior holiday visas to visit Thailand are becoming redundant. There is a lot going on in this article, I am just going to quote an excerpt. I urge those who are watching this video check that out for yourselves. Quoting directly: "Security expert Colin Ross said Thai Authorities had finally realized that form filling was a poor way of monitoring foreigners. “Computerization of records and tracking people's GPS location via mobile phones makes a lot more sense", he said. He added that once virtual passports replace the documentary version, travellers’ identity and biometrics would be stored in a Cloud. No need to carry the passport or fear it being stolen, but that is a few years away yet." God I hope so! A few years away yet. At some point I think everybody needs to kind of sit down and say "Do we really want this?" Just to quote that again, quote: "computerization of records," Okay, computerization of records, that's one thing, okay? "And tracking people's GPS location via mobile phones." Yeah no, why? I don't know why we really want that. Quoting further: "makes a lot more sense," Well, to who? End quote for that, "he said." Quoting further: "He added that once virtual passports replaced the documentary version, travellers' identity and biometrics would be stored in a Cloud."

Well what if we don't want to be stored in a Cloud? What if I don't want my biometrics just out there in some perpetual ether for anybody to come to and see? I just, part of me also would like to just kind of for a moment break the mindset of inevitability that seems to come with this. I want to be clear. We really need to have these discussions and maybe think about not doing this for a variety of different reasons. Me personally, things like biometrics when you are checking in through an Immigration checkpoint, especially in a country that you are not a national of, okay I can understand that. That country says "Hey, we have got a security issue. We don't want to just let anybody into our country, you have got to have your fingerprints done." All right, you put your hand on the metre and it reads it and boom, you have got your biometrics there in the system. I think there is some call for that but this notion of "being stored in the Cloud", and "virtual passports" and things. At a certain point you have got to ask "why?" What are we doing this for? Who are we protecting ourselves from? Ourselves, or what? I mean there is something to be said still for freedom I think in both an International context certainly, in an American and a Thai context. Do we really want to have like this digital, I don't know what you want to call it "Digital Cloud” follow us around sort of like the rain cloud in Winnie the Pooh with Christopher Robin, where it is just always sort of over you? I am not saying I know the answer to that question. What I do know is none of this sounds like something I particularly am going to enjoy living in.