USA / Russia - getting indistinguishable?
Russia and the USA have the world’s highest populations of prisoners [PDF from the British Government, 116 KB size]. Russia has 685 per 100,000 people of the national population locked away, followed by the USA, which has 645 prisoners per 100,000. Those figures are around 6 times the rates for most countries in Europe, by the way (Germany, France, Switzerland: 90, UK 125, Italy 85 for example. Even Zimbabwe only has 155 per 100,000 in prison).
The USA under George W Bush has moved much closer to a soviet-style regime in another way: the Transport Security Administration (TSA) has just published a proposal that all air passengers will have to apply for permission to fly to/from or over the USA 72 hours in advance of their flight for “security screening”. Only if you get a clean bill of health will you be issued with a boarding card. Non-travellers entering secure areas, such as parents escorting children, will also need clearance. (If you don’t fancy ploughing though a 1MB PDF, the Register has summarized the main points here).
Apart from sounding very like the thin edge of requirements similar to those in Russia to have internal passports for movements within Russia – a requirement which is about to be lifted, by the way, I can’t imagine that it will help tourism, which despite the cheap dollar has been suffering from the increasing bureaucracy associated with trying to arrange travel to the USA.