Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing this Electronic Travel Authorization yet again. As I have discussed in other videos, I find this very analogous if you will to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization which currently exists under US Customs and Border Protection in the United States. They've been talking about rolling this thing out ever since, well it's been about a couple to 3 weeks now. Again they first came up with hey we are going to extend the Visa Waiver program so that more people can get Visa Exemption Stamps into Thailand and then on top of that they doubled the amount of lawful status in Thailand from 30 to 60 days. Okay. Now they want to put on this Electronic Travel Authorization which as have I talked about in other videos is basically going to ring fence Thailand with this digital bureaucracy to allow anybody to get in. It's basically a re-imposition of Certificates of Entry and the Thailand Pass, just under another name, and quite honestly that did nothing but hinder tourism to Thailand. The existence of it in and of itself creates an obstacle that will, it's statistically an inevitability, it will drive off certain tourists, period. Do we really want to do that? 

That said, quoting directly from a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Suspension of TM6 form for travellers extended. I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail. It takes a different direction from what we are talking about, so check out that article for yourself. That said, quoting directly: "The ETA system will allow foreign tourists from 93 countries granted Visa-free entry to register online prior to their arrival in Thailand." I love how this is sort of framed "it will 'allow' foreign tourists"! No, you're imposing it on foreign tourists; it's not allowing anything. Then meanwhile "granted Visa free entry to register online prior to their arrival in Thailand." Again when ESTA was rolled out in the United States, the ESTA, it was called the back-door Visa because up to that point we had a Visa waiver program in the United States with many other countries, for example the UK. Up to the point of the creation of ESTA, somebody with a British passport could just get on a plane, travel to the United States, their passport would be examined; they would say "hey you're from a Visa free country, here's a stamp, now you can be here." Very similar to the current Visa Exemption program we currently have in Thailand. You fly in with a passport from one of these 93 countries, boom 60 days on arrival in Thailand unless they find that you are somehow inadmissible to the Kingdom, that's going to be how it plays out. Creating this extra obstacle I think is only going to hurt the tourism sector here in Thailand just as we saw travellers be diminished from the Visa-free countries coming into Thailand. 

But the point I'm trying to make here is this double-speak that you are seeing. Again, I want to quote this again. "The ETA system will allow foreign tourists from 93 countries granted Visa-free entry to register online prior to their arrival in Thailand." Well if you have to register online, how is that not a Visa? And it allows for travel authorization, it's in the name. What is a Visa if it's not travel authorization to a given country that you're not a citizen of? So again this ETA, on the one hand they are saying "oh we've gone Visa free" and then on the other hand they're going to try to impose this ETA which effectively is a de facto Visa. Quoting further: "The QR code they receive on registration can then be used to pass through automated Immigration gates." Now that sounds super convenient and yay, except for the fact it's just one more step on this path of this World Economic Forum, Communist International - whatever you want to call  it - this path of increasing closeness to totalitarianism. So now we're all going to be defined by a QR code? Maybe they can tattoo it on all of our foreheads so they can just use a scanner to scan us every time we walk through certain checkpoints. I mean this stuff is really Orwellian; that's not hyperbole really. I mean imagine thinking back 10 years ago that somebody told you this is the system they would be trying to put it in Thailand of all places, one of the freest countries in the world. Would anyone have believed that? No, they would have called you crazy, but here we are. Quoting further: "The Ministry of Tourism and Sports meanwhile is exploring integrating the collection of the 300 Baht and 150 Baht Tourism Fees into the ETA system." So on top of everything else, it's a tax mechanism. And as we've seen with everything going on with the Digital Wallet Tokens, with the talk of all the street vendors in Thailand, it all comes down to 'we want to put you into a digital system, totalitarian surveillance of all transactions and then we are going to tax you via that system.'

And as me and the producer of these videos were just talking about, another major thing that people aren't thinking about is the minute this goes digital, the minute this is all within the ether of the internet, they can start just inserting fees and little requirements and fines and whatever, and they can do it on you digitally so that they don't have to engage in any conflict with you over the issue. It's just it is what it is and people just put their hands up "well the computer says so. Your QR code reads this way, that's how it is." Has anybody ever seen the movie Idiocrasy, where the guy has to go get a tattoo and he gets the wrong name because he said he's not sure what the system is asking for, so the system names him 'Not Sure' and then tattoos a barcode on him that says 'Not Sure'. Not all that dissimilar from a “QR” code.

Again is this stuff being rolled out to increase efficiency of Tourism? Not really. As I've discussed in other videos, the Electronic Travel Authorization itself creates a ring fence around Thailand that doesn't currently exist and definitely will have a negative impact on tourism arrivals. I think that's a statistical inevitability. Meanwhile, again is it really needed or called for? Not particularly. Does it have the smell of this World Economic Forum nonsense of trying to Track and Trace all of us folks all around the world in everything we do and then impose via digital mechanisms, a tax on all of those people via totalitarian surveillance of all of their transactions throughout the world?