I confess to a moment of panic when my news feeds threw up a headline of “US security clampdown” followed by suggestions of new and draconian restrictions for Britons traveling to the US. Having read the article, however, I’m not too worried. In fact it might even help.

What I want to know here is what this will do to my travel arrangements. The knee-jerk reaction is to say, “oh, they are keeping files on me!” but they do that anyway. Every time you cross a national border your passport gets logged – pretty much regardless of which country you are entering. What appears to be happening here is that the visa waiver scheme is getting tightened up, and changed from something that you apply for on the plane, to something you apply for 3 days in advance. This, I think, might be a good thing.

If you haven’t traveled to the US you won’t know what I’m talking about, so here’s a quick explanation. The visa waiver scheme is a system whereby citizens of countries friendly to the US can travel there without the need to apply for a visa. This is very useful. However, you do have to fill in a little green card giving your name, passport number, nationality and some details about where you plan to stay in the US. You also have to answer a bunch of daft questions such as, “have you ever been convicted of genocide?” The primary purpose of this is that, should you have lied on that card, they can chuck you out of the country easily.

The main problem with visa waiver is that it doesn’t give you right of entry. That decision gets made by the immigration official when you arrive in the US (or, if you come from Canada or Ireland, when you depart). If they turn you down (and they don’t have to give a reason) then you can be denied entry and sent back home (at your expense). This, as you can imagine, is very scary. The first time I ever visited the US neither Kevin nor I understood the process. I only had a PO box address for him, and that resulted in my getting stopped at immigration. If I hadn’t been able to phone him and get a physical address I would have been sent back to Australia, whence I had come, and probably never been allowed to enter the US in the future.

What the new proposal looks like (and the Telegraph has a lot more background) is a means of applying for visa waiver over the Internet 3 days before you travel. This gives the US authorities a lot more time to check you out, and hopefully avoid stupid mistakes like denying entry to kids who have the same name as someone on a terrorist watch list. It also means that if a problem does crop up they might be able to let you know before you travel, and give you a chance to sort things out before you leave. And it looks like the whole process is going to apply for a two-year period, so once you are approved that should mean 2 years of relatively hassle-free travel.

Clearly a lot of things can go wrong. There are people in the TSA who appear to think that tourism is a danger to America, and you never know what daft ideas they might come up with. But at the moment I’m cautiously optimistic. I also note that the Telegraph claims that the EU will be imposing similar requirements on Americans, so no moral posturing please.

What does ring slight alarm bells is that the process is to be introduced in August. My Worldcon trip starts on July 31st, so hopefully I’m OK. I really don’t want to be one of the first people to trial the new system.