> China has had similar systems for decades. The dang’an record books on employee behavior ...

Under the Communists China also has had (and maybe still does?) city block-level surveillance by neighbors of residential behavior.

> The US has something like this ...

The false equivalency comes up too much. I wrote some code in a couple hours the other day that is "something like" the Linux kernel, in that they are both code, both read from the network and output to the monitor, and both have bugs which will never be fixed. But if I want to communicate to others an accurate comparison of the two code bases, mentioning those similarities is misleading.

Communist China still has residential officers, but only in older complexes (I don't think we had one in my newish complex, but I definitely heard about them in more traditional Beijing apartment complexes).

I think what people have to watch closely is the collation of these different lists. The American do-not-fly list already is full of mistakes[0][1][2] and institutionalized prejudice[3][4], and so if that score affected more it would damage even more.

[0] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/no-fly-mistakes-cat-s...

[1] http://theresurgent.com/these-people-mistakenly-ending-up-on...

[2] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/06/class-action-suit-target...

[3] https://ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/tools-resources/fac...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/22/us-stops-bri...

The fact that the no-fly list can be manipulated without visibility is exactly why it's so useful to authoritarian regimes like China's communist party and the US security-state.

Can declaring bankruptcy in the USA really get me put on the "do not fly" list?

Well then, I guess it is all the same.

What in the world does filing bankruptcy have to do with flying on an airplane?

I thought being on 'do not fly' lists came about because of one doing something that could be construed as anti-security, er...like terroristic in nature. I'm so confused with how some people commenting in these threads come up with off the wall, random and unrelated associations lol. It's exasperating to say the least.

Yep, you get it. That would not happen in the USA, but has already happened in china.

Global Entry doesn't entitle you to 'skipping' any security lines. It accelerates the customs process, but one still ends up handing one's documents over to customs officers for a (usually) quick review, just as everyone else does.

The biggest perk for Global Entry (besides getting a known traveler number for Pre-Check eligibility) is that the process of filling out the customs paperwork is faster and more automated, and that the ratio of travelers : customs officers is lower.

Getting to use a line with a lower ratio of travelers to customs officers is exactly what someone means when they talk about skipping a line. If they meant skipping the customs checks they probably would have said checks rather than line.

"do not fly" list is not the same as keeping a social credit score. You don't get on the do not flying list if you speak against the US president's policies. That's the difference between democracy and the other thing (not really sure what category China falls these days)