*banging head against wall*

[baratron]

Can I just say, the US is fucking paranoid.

Am I allowed to say that? Or will I now be banned from ever entering the country again?!

I mean, for God's sake - this prevention of bioterrorism thing. If I want to send food (including sweets/candy) to friends in the US, I have to spend 15 minutes submitting a Prior Notification of food arriving form. This applies to anything except food I have made myself in my own home. If you ask me, that exemption is bloody ridiculous - if I was going to send a bioweapon to the US, wouldn't it be much easier to conceal it in a homemade "cake" than to open up a packet of prebought food, inject it in there, and reseal the packet well enough for Customs not to notice? Argh!

I can barely even understand the supposedly simple English factsheet, let alone anything else. I'm sitting here going "OK, I have a degree, I am not stupid", but the level of acronyms and corporate/government-speak is so high that it might as well be in a foreign language. I don't know how the average person on the street is supposed to cope with this. Even our own dear Royal Mail have not been able to understand it, because the information given on their web site states that manufactured food sent as a personal gift is exempt - but this is contradicted by the US FDA's own web site.

The worst thing about this is that the food I am trying to send was made and even bought in the US! I just didn't get round to posting it while I was there...

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Er yes they are. But crappily so.

And their forms aren't very good either. There is one classic design flaw on their immigration green card form. *everyone* puts the date in the wrong place because they don't understand that missing lines out doesn't help people.

I spent three weeks in New York visiting the same office every day and I needed photo-id every single day to get into the building.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

From the factsheet
> Examples of "food" include

Just in case you didn't know what food is.

[overconvergent.livejournal.com]

It's amusing, of course, but I can imagine that there are borderline cases. I'm not sure that I'd've classed flour as a food, but clearly they do.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I certainly would. It's not finished food, but it's clearly food.

[overconvergent.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to grant you flour, if only for the purposes of debate, but they also include dietary supplements, which I would *not* count as food. I imagine that there were long debates over what exactly were the essential properties of food.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Uhhh ... the law reads is if it's directed at food import/export businesses, not private individuals sending gifts. Sounds as if the postal authorities (ours and yours) have gone overboard in applying it to private shipments. Bleah.