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Japan to Start Fingerprinting Foreign Travelers
rabiddeity writes "If you're planning to visit Japan sometime in the near future, you should be aware of the welcome you'll get. Last year, Japan's parliament passed a measure requiring foreigners to submit their fingerprints when entering the country. The measures, which apply to all foreigners over 16 regardless of visa status, take effect tomorrow. The worst part: the fingerprints are stored in a national database for an "unspecified time", and will be made available to both domestic police and foreign governments."
Welcome to the rest of the world's dilemma if we want to even transit through the USA. I've avoided it for the past...3, 4(?) years exactly for this reason. I wouldn't be surprised if Japan is doing this kind of as a big 'FU' to the States.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
When the US started to fingerprint foreign travellers, a whole bunch of countries threatened to do that to visting US citizens. It is nice to see Japan follow through with their threat, albeit a few years later (although they are not just focussing on US citizens). I can see a bunch of Americans getting really upset about this and declaring they'll never travel to Japan, but what the Japanese Government are doing is really no different than what the US Government is doing to everyone else.
Personally I don't like being treated as a criminal. However, as much as I could complain about it, it won't be stopping me from travelling.
America has been doing this to citizens of every single country except Canada for many years now. Even up here in Canada we figure it's only a matter of time.
Each new power given to the government must be balanced by a power of the citizenry. Else, this is just another step on the path to a facist state.
These new powers of surveillance and databases that we're giving our governments are vast. Never before in history has a country been able to monitor the movements and transactions of everyone, with so much precision. I know of no balancing power that has been given to the citizens in countries such as the US, UK, and now Japan, to check that the government is not abusing these powers. And the citizenry certainly does not have the equivalent power of knowing the private travel habits of their officials.
The fact of the matter is that these kinds of powers are far more useful for tracking law-abiding citizens than catching criminals. You don't catch criminals by identifying all the non-criminals. The database of non-criminals is totally useless, since any truly nefarious characters will avoid it, and not end up in your database at all. These kinds of things are often justified on the basis of preventing petty crime. But, this is far too large a power to give the government to reduce petty crime. Petty crime will never hit zero.
Instead, these new kinds of powers have far more use in tracking political enemies and corporate espionage. For instance just before the next G8 summit you can bet there will be new names on the no-fly lists. Before a major political debate, the challenging candidate will be denied travel. Governments will be able to determine when competing corporations are traveling for a meeting, and deny entry to those people. For people who are not political dissidents or corporate higher-ups, the only possible consequence besides deterioration of our democratic systems is that we will end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and be accused of committing a crime. The dragnet will have found us. And the evidence will be ironclad. Because, fingerprints are never wrong, are they?
I need a succinct way to explain these issues. The fact of the matter these arguments always come down to the brain-dead simple arguments that are difficult to refute: a) This will help catch <latest bogeyman>; and b) I'm not a <latest bogeyman> so why should I care? I need a one-sentence refutation to these arguments to give the people that don't think very hard about it. Obviously those interested in preserving freedom such as myself are not winning this argument. Anyone want to suggest one in the comments?
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Japan has gone further. Not only are visitors fingerprinted and photographed but also foreign residents like my friend Terrie LLoyd in the second article who has been there for almost a quarter of a century and who has started several successful companies that employ Japanese citizens.
What is most irritating is that Japan really doesn't have reason to fear an international terrorist incident on their soil. As Terrie says, all the terrorist incidents in Japan have been done by Japanese and the amount of crime by foreigners in Japan is minuscule compared to the overall total.
This is xenophobia pure and simple and will kill whatever tourist industry Japan was trying to get with their "Yokoso Japan!" campaign. A lot of businesses will avoid Japan because of these regulations as business travellers definitely do not like being treated as criminals.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Now the U.S. will have access to fingerprints of US citizens who travel to Japan without ever having to lift a finger. I'm sure they will push for all other governments to start doing this -- where upon anyone who ever traveled outside this country will be fingerprinted by others and all of it put into some worldwide database.
I'm sure Bush is going to give his thanks to the Japanese Prime Minister one of these days.
Brazil started doing this when the US announced it was doing it to all visitors a couple of years ago. It surprised me to see that it has taken other countries so long to start doing this too. What goes around comes around. We do it to the world, then the world will do it to us.
This also applies to torture and other interogation techniques like "water boarding" for captured soldiers. In the future our military personal should expect to have the same treatment that we are giving others with water boarding, etc.
Travellers to the US have been fingerprinted for some time - not to mention all the other indignities they endure. Reciprocity is a bitch, isn't it.
you had me at #!
There's a very large difference between giving fingerprints and having your house or rectum searched.
The difference is only one of degree, not of kind.
There are two components to gathering fingerprints: The initial fingerprinting and the "match" found at an incriminating location.
Equivalently, there are two components to searching your house: the initial search and the "match" of something in your house that the cops think is illegal, or might be indicative of illegal activity -- e.g. "drug paraphernalia," even if the only thing you ever smoke in the pipe they turn up is tobacco. The point is that, without probable cause, they shouldn't be looking in the first place.
Your privacy only becomes violated by fingerprints when a crime is comitted AND it can additionally provide evidence you were NOT in said location if your status as a criminal is ever questioned.
Your privacy is violated the minute they search without probable cause, regardless of what they're searching is your house or your fingertips. Period. What part of "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, and effects" don't you understand?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Before you label these "refuseniks" and potentially all Koreans as "racist bigots", perhaps you should look into the modern history of Japanese occupation of Korean penninsula. There are many controversial historical issues, but I will point you to the worst alleged war crime by Japan against Koreans (and I mean alleged in the neutral sense—like O.J. Simpson is an alleged murderer). You can look up the rest, if you are interested. But, in short, I think it'd not be an exaggeration to say that compared to the Korean people under Japanese rule during WWII, the American citizens of Japanese ancestry lived like kings and queens in their "concentration camp" during the same time.
The point is, these people have not prejudged the Japanese—there is history that just can't be buried by nothing less than the amnesia induced by several centuries and all the good feeling that'll be generated by a unified world government (either that, or a very simple apology from the current Japanese government). Calling these people, who, from either their own (my friend's grandfather (who is a Korean) lived under the Japanese rule and could describe all the forced assimilation of Koreans into Japanese culture) or experience of people they trust (like family and teachers), know how badly Koreans were treated by the Japanese, "racist bigots" ... is either a display of patent ignorance of modern history, or some truly amazing bigotry in its own right.
Well, I am not a Korean myself (I just have a friend who is overflowing with "Korean-ness", and who, despite all that, happens to be a best friend), so if you need more, you will have to find another Korean to discuss it in more detail. But I just want you to know; it's not like these people don't have a very good reason to distrust and even hate the Japanese. They have the best reason you can find in the world to hate a group of people.
P.S. One very obvious argument (the same one I made when I was first confronted with this) would be: "But that's all history, over 60, 70 years ago!". And here's my friend's answer:
"And the Japanese people living in Japan TODAY is still proud that they beat the Russians, threatened the Chinese, and oppressed the Koreans. Unlike what used to be the Nazi Germany, where there can't possibly be another NAZI party TODAY, and calling a German "Nazi" would be the gravest insult you could throw at him, in Japan, the same emperor (well, emperor of the same line) that ruled over Japan during the periods of WWII (and before) still rules over the APPARENTLY SAME JAPAN. The Japanese government continually refuses to acknowledge its war crimes against Koreans (especially the Korean women who were sexually abused, not to mention the men who were used as human shields) nor apologize for it. It's not history, not just yet. It's very much current, despite the length of time that passed."
America, the entire world, is entering a state of perpetual tyranny because people don't have the mental furniture necessary to understand the difference betwteen freedom and fascism. Freedom is not the ability to work for Wal-Mart, eat food, and go to theme parks. Freedom is the ability to not kow-tow your head on the sidewalk when a coporate/government thug demands your DNA and your unquestioning obedience. It's moving around the world without tracking devices; tyranny needs to know where the troublemakers are, so that they may be neutralized. Freedom requires the ability to write and speak anonymously. Freedom is NOT the ability to speak your mind only in the safety of your bedroom closet, for every byway and gathering place eventually becomes private property, where now-accepted custom is that no human right to speak or gather exists. Freedom to TROUBLE THE POWERFUL without the certainty that one will be noted and dealt with. Freedom is the ability to travel and meet with people without what are in all sanity PRISON GUARDS logging your movements and recording your words, building inescapable fortresses of data with which to destroy you come the need to do so. The wedding of power and business is in fact fascism, and fascism is always, ALWAYS sold by invoking an implacable enemy that we need to defend from at all costs.
Of course, as Bush and so many others have shown, that enemy always turns out to be the people that are being protected. Recursion of the "reason" given for all fascisms. The tools used to "protect" you from dark scary people are always - always! turned in full force against you. And done correctly, silence grips the mouths of all and no one dares utter the words to describe the reality in which they live, for the consequences are too deadly. The tools necessary to trigger the use of the KBR-built detention camps being built for the last few years are in place. One bomb, and Bush declares emergency powers and the troublemakers get their asses dragged to extrajudicial prisons at the sole mercy of the Unitary Executive. The Constitution teeters, the last few rights about to be declared void by his pocket judges. And the same is true in France, and the UK, and so many other places.
When I was in the Finnish Army, one of our instructors said (bad translation): "Group punishment (that is, punishing the whole group when you can't figure out who's the real culprit) is forbidden, but there are ways around that."
That was a moment of epiphany for me, the moment when I stopped respecting the law and the authority behind it. It was an insignificant incident in itself, but it certainly drove home that the authority is not my friend, but rather a mass of corruption, and should be avoided whenever possible in any of its forms. It was also the moment when whatever lingering remains of nationalism still existed in my heart died out for good. For all that I owe a debt of gratitude I can never repay to that instructor.
So, don't hate your overlords, but learn from them. They want to get your fingerprints ? Forge them.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Thank you for exemplifying the attitude that lets governments get away with this shit. Do you really think Japan (or the US, for that matter) would continue this blatant abuse of their visiters' privacy if a majority of tourists decided they'd rather spend their money in a country that doesn't treat them like criminals?
The "there's nothing I can do about it, so I'll just live with it" attitude is at least as much to blame for these problems as corrupt governments.