Some people have to travel for work. For Canadians, lots of international flights connect through the US (especially if you're flying on the cheapest routes), and there's no way to transit through without "properly" entering the country. While the thing in the post doesn't yet apply to Canada (due to us not requiring an ESTA), it very well could become a thing soon. That would be pretty awful for everyone.

Does any country require you to have entry rights for a layover?

US does. You have to clear immigration, exit the terminal and then come back into the terminal just like a local passenger.

This is literally a data collection scam run by US intel / law enforcement to collect biometrics with some “plausible” reason. Now it’s a chance to grab your passwords and private conversations too. Act accordingly,

But they might have to.

I’m on the same boat and told management at work that I won’t be traveling to the US while Trump is in power, which they seem to be fine with, but who knows if that’ll last.

> Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway.

I fall into this camp (little to no social media besides LinkedIn) and I've had no issues traveling to the EU or UK or really any other police state for that matter. Plan to do more this upcoming year.