Slashdot Mirror
US Expands Fingerprint and Mugshot Program for Visitors
prakslash writes "The US State Department has expanded its anti-terrorist fingerprinting program to include visitors from close US allies such as the UK, Australia, France, Germany and Japan. Everytime a visitor enters or leaves the US, they will have to get their mugshot and fingerprints taken - something that used to be mainly limited to your local police precinct. More news can be found here and here. In addition to the huge costs involved, one has to wonder if this will affect tourism to this country." Hmmm, a huge database of digital mugshots and digital fingerprints, which will be kept forever - hope we have enough RAM to search through it quickly and constantly.
This is why these laws won't work.
If somebody is going to commit something illegal, he'll probably enter the country illegally. Probably through the porous mexican border or the huge coastline that the US has.
Actually, the truth is that you are wrong. The hijackers entered the United States via real and honest US Visas. Many of the people arrested in the US for terrorist related activities have been abusing the system via student visas. Sorry, but even as a liberal that I may be, this is an incorrect and erroneous assumption. In other words, you're wrong.
Secondly, this is downright disrespectful. Detractors will argue that it's for the safety of the US. Well, I really don't see how it'll help. Once the dude is in the country, and has committed the offence, this sort of system is absolutely worthless. Effort should be put into preventing these sort of tragedies. Efforts like putting more effort into the Israel Palestine crisis, managing Iraq more effectively, stop being so patriachal and showing more respect to the citizens of the world.
This is a Customs, INS, and border issue. Please don't drag in geo-politics into it. The police cannot find and ferret out people who are planning the murder of innocents if they don't know who they are. That means you must take a picture. Whoop de doo.
I for one, will be taking my tourist dollars elsewhere. Where the authorities respect me. Where I'm not treated like a criminal and people realise that not everybody is out to get them.
Fine then. Look, America was the biggest free entrance country in the world for the longest time. Those days are over. If you complain about being harassed by photos, all the while knowing with certainty that people are trying to get in the USA are definitely planning MASS MURDER on an UNPRECEDENTED SCALE, then you have your priorities out of whack. You must understand none of this would have changed if not for the MASS MURDER of some three thousand citizens and foreign nationals one Tuesday morning.
I am a known liberal. Doesn't mean that I am stupid, and need to hug a man with a dynamite belt for the sake of making others feel less inconvenienced.
If you are insulted that you might be seen as a terrorist, I would suggest you stop projecting the worst on people. What if your kinsmen were killed out of nowhere? What would you think? Look, think about your own people. What if they were murdered?
This is not Geo-Politics as everyone says. This is religious extremism that mannifests itself in murder. For all of you people out there that say the USA caused all of the problems in this 'War on Terror' stuff, then when did the USA found Wahhabist Extremism. After all, this extremism is the cause of it.
Please, someone refute me on this. I would like people to tell me how policies from a nation half a world away can cause people to strap on explosives to themselves and attempt genocide. Explain that to me. Explain how we made the Ayatollahs. How we literally MADE THEM. If we tipped their culture, then tell me how much we had to push, because it looks like the beating of a moth's wing from where I am standing.
But please, refute me. I would love to hear this one, how the USA destroyed a mighty culture of peace and tolerance.