Comment by BjoernKW
10 years ago
Unfortunately, I suppose this is exactly what we (meaning the electorate who voted since 2001) wanted. By allowing politicians to pass bills like the Patriot Act (which started this whole mess and quickly brought about similar security and surveillance laws in at least every other country that's on friendly terms with the US) we brought this kind of treatment on ourselves. How can one establish organizations like the TSA or the Border Force - its UK counterpart - and seriously not expect things like this to happen?
Unfortunately, the majority likely doesn't care at all when some 'snotty' designer gets held up at the airport and sent back to her home country. "Probably deserves it anyway in some way, doesn't she?" In fact, resentfulness towards people who get to 'live the life' and travel for 'work' might play a role here, too.
The aspect of a German company paying her in British pounds. shouldn't be a problem at all. After all, that's what the EU single market should be about. Theoretically, that is ... It seems as if the EU can't get anything right anymore these days, though.
Just claiming VAT you payed in another EU country has become so ridiculously complex I have given up on it. Fortunately, in my case it's just things like the occasional conference fee so the loss is minimal but I can't imagine how anyone could run say an eCommerce business in Europe and sell in more than one EU country these days without having to resort to founding a company in each of those countries.
No, border crossings have been like this since long before the PATRIOT act. Computer scientists were turned away at the borders trying to fly in to give Black Hat talks; I worked for a Canadian company and had strict instructions to tell the Canadian border people I was traveling to see friends, and so on.
This has nothing to do with terrorism. It has to do with visa classifications, and the skittishness of countries about people visiting (or, the concern is, immigrating) to do work.
Also: as a reminder, the UK has long been concerned about people smuggling arms and the like for the sake of terrorism: the majority of arms used by the IRA originated in the US for decades before 9/11 (after which the US supply largely dried up, as did US funding of such terrorist groups).
That does not sound correct to me. The IRA got most of its weapons from Libya [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/inside/wea...] from the 1980's on, and the Good Friday agreement was signed (presumably suspending arms smuggling) years before 9/11.
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And the majority of the arms used by loyalist paramilitaries came from South Africa via the UK security forces.
Our government and arms businesses are happy for the guns to leave the UK, though.
> The aspect of a German company paying her in British pounds. shouldn't be a problem at all.
As far as I know in Germany the same rule applies as in Austria: you need to have the amount in EUR on the invoice at least in addition of another currency with an exchange rate.