First, the good news. Due to a lawsuit filed by a group of Florida travel agents against the state of Florida, there will be a temporary lifting of the law that requires them to post a $250,000 bond and disclose the names of clients in order to continue their business of booking flights to Cuba. Before the law was signed this June by Gov. Charlie Crist, all agents, including those providing such legal trips to Cuba, were required to pay a $25,000 bond.
The bad news is that such a Cold War, time-warp piece of legislation was even sent to Crist and that he, indeed, signed it. Obviously the oft-championed “will of the people” was easily subordinated by the will of the usual hardliners in the Cuban exile community. Those whose priorities are not in the best interest of the United States or of Cuban-Americans trying to return to Cuba for their once-every-three-years visit.
The rationale supplied by State Rep. David Rivera, a Republican and Cuban-American who sponsored the bill, is vintage in its disingenuous Administration-speak. Rivera says the law is an “anti-terrorism” bill. Increasing the bond 10 fold, effectively putting people out of business, is an ostensibly appropriate price to pay to expedite passage to any country on the State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terror.”
And, sure enough, Cuba makes the State Department’s hit list. Right there with fellow traveling terrorists such as Iran, Sudan and Syria. What next, a sinister link between Raul Castro and Al Qaeda? Fidel and Hamas? Che and 9/11?
A federal judge will ultimately decide if the Florida law oversteps the bounds of state authority by, in effect, regulating international travel. Too bad overstepping the bounds of fairness and decency doesn’t count.
Charlie Crist ought to be ashamed, for that bill-signing was also a signature veepstakes event.