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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.
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 #!
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.