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Homeland Security To Scan Citizens Exiting US
An anonymous reader writes "The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travellers departing the United States. From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta. The controversial plan to scan outgoing passengers — including US citizens — was allegedly hatched under the Bush Administration. An official has said it will be used in part to crack down on the US population of illegal immigrants."
"An official has said it will be used in part to crack down on the US population of illegal immigrants"
Why not just let them leave? And bar them when they try to come back. What is the point of catching someone you don't want in the country when they are leaving it??
You can see how they take little baby steps. One at a time. In ten years imagine what will be happening.
All countries exercise at least some control over who can enter, but there's only one kind of country that erects barriers to who can leave. How long until you guys build a wall? Oh, apparently you've started already.
it keeps creeping in, step by step, for as long as enough of us remain silent.
"We are trying to ensure we know more about who came and who left," [Michael Hardin] said. "We have a large population of illegal immigrants in the United States - we want to make sure the person getting on the plane really is the person the records show to be leaving."
huh? so the epidemic of people pretending to leave the country on commercial flights by booking flights and sending doppelgangers in their place is finally over! rejoice Americans! we are all now super safe!
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
None of the illegal immigrants I've ever met have arrived by airplane.
This leaves two options: either these guys are really stupid, or the real goal is different from the stated goal.
Yeah this seems like a real efficient way to catch illegal immigrants, I'm sure most of the come to the U.S. to catch international flights from Atlanta and Detroit. That's how dumb the government knows the average person is.
U.S. of A. the Land Of The Free. Sorry, just couldn't resist.
There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
You know, I'm a Canadian, and ten years ago, I would have voted to join the US. I felt that Americans recognised the value of their freedoms and that they had, and would fight to keep, a more free society than just about anywhere else on Earth. Today, I won't even travel there. It reminds me of all those B movies just after WW2 "Achtung! Show me your papers". How could y'all have just let this happen ?
Saying who can and can't enter is, well, part of being an nation. I would place it akin to an individual being able to decide who can and can't enter their home. Part of being a sovereign nation is you need to be able to decide who is allowed to come in.
However not being able to leave? Well again I'd say it is like a private individual and while you can tell me I can't come in to your house, once you've let me in you have to let me out when I want to go. Barriers for exit are things that are normally associated with extremely oppressive societies. The USSR had very strict border control and it was more to keep their populace in than to keep foreigners out. Thus I see this as a step down a very bad path.
It also raises some serious legal questions for people like me. I am a citizen of two nations, the US and Canada. I have a right to go to either nation. So is it legal for the US to say "No, you can't go to Canada,"? Who are they to tell me I can't go to my country?
How it feeels.
NO SIG
"So what if they want to fingerprint travelers entering the country? I think this is a good idea"
"So what if they want to fingerprint travelers exiting the country? I think this is a good idea"
"So what if they want to fingerprint travelers changing flights at the country? I think this is a good idea"
"So what if they want to fingerprint travelers flying past the country? I think this is a good idea"
"So what if they want to fingerprint drivers? I think this is a good idea"
"So what if they want to fingerprint cyclists? I think this is a good idea"
"So what if they want to fingerprint pedestrians? I think this is a good idea"
"So what if they want to fingerprint everyone? I think this is a good idea"
It's called "unnecessary feature creep". Providing fingerprints at a border helps no more than providing other, non-biometric, information at the border, whether you've just murdered someone or not. Either you're on the database (and thus can be flagged in an instant by having an A.P.B. put out) or you're not. But unnecessary feature creep paves the way to a surveillance society. 50 years ago we didn't even *have* this technology, now it's being made compulsory if you want to fly, drive, cycle, ... and eventually it's just compulsory.
Plus, that data is *personal* under most country's definitions of personal data. In the EU that means it's subject to the Data Protection Act which means I have a legal assurance (whether it's carried out or not is another matter) that the data will be kept private, not be disclosed except for explicit purposes and that only authorised people will see it. The US does not, and never has, provided such guarantees to visitors (even if it intended to break them anyway once they were on paper)
"Please tell me how this is an infringement on your 'rights'?"
I have the right to pass freely through almost every port in the world without undue let or hindrance. The US just removed that. I also have the right to protect my personal information and to refuse to give biometric data if I so wish. That right was just lost. Just because in America you didn't HAVE those rights in the first place, that's no reason to not understand why other people are upset (and we are by definition talking about international travellers here).
"The DHS/ICE already do biometric scanning of all *permanent* residents when they're entering the country, and I mean fingerprinting all the fingers in both of your hands. People with US Passports, by comparison, are waived through, which I think is a incredibly stupid thing."
Yep. Because you've just scanned the fingerprints of someone that, by definition, you have zero record of anywhere else (because they are not a US citizen until that time). Yet you let known criminals walk through because they have a US passport. That's just STUPID. And another nail in the "we need this" coffin. It's an *unnecessary* measure.
"Besides, the EU has been doing this for quite some time. Get over it."
No they haven't. I am an EU citizen and have NEVER provided my fingerprints EVER for ANY purpose in ANY country - I even have a 10 year British passport, a 10-year British driving license (both with EU-certified RFID etc. in them) and never had to provide anything but an authenticated photo and documentation (for the next renewal in a decade's time it might be more tricky to avoid being fingerprinted if people don't stand up to this crap NOW) - and only last year I travelled through 10 countries in the EU within two weeks on a cruise ship. In fact, that's why I'm not flying to the US ever again - that and the "we need the right to copy your laptop data and not tell you what we did with it" - that's a KILLER for me, because it means I would be breaking the law in my own country by disclosing private, personalised business data.
You're throwing a right away every time you say "I don't see a problem with it, so okay". What you should be saying is "I don't see the need. So why should I?". Whethe
we hated the USSR out of jealously. And now look at how swiftly we race to embrace statism.
Quack, quack.
If a corporation is hurt by a policy, something will be done. If average workers are hurt by a policy, nothing will be done, until the problem can no longer be ignored.
That's a really naive view. Especially if you live in California. There are tons of policies that hurt businesses, from weird taxes, to bureaucratic red tape, and nothing is being done.
You probably came to this naive viewpoint because you actually don't understand the issues businesses deal with, and so you don't see all the problems they have. On the other hand, you ARE a normal person, so you easily see the problems of a normal person, even if they don't come before the government. Businesses have problems too, and nothing is done often, you just don't notice. Pay attention and your view of society will not be so distorted.
Qxe4
I can't wait until we can view ads from sponsors during the scanning. Hope you enjoyed your visit! And Drink Pepsi!
Quack, quack.
>>I might be less critical of such actions if it weren't for the fact that "security" isn't being improved or actually even being addressed.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Of course, this was also said by a major figure of what we would call, today, an insurgent force, fighting against the established government of the country. He spent much of that war in another country, raising funds to support what those who claimed they had a legitimate government considered to be a terrorist action. By recent standards, for the funding part alone, two guys were sentenced to 65 years, just this week.
His name was Benjamin Franklin.
Precisely because of shit like this.
The probability of the collected information being misused is higher than the probability that I will commit a crime.
Next time I leave the US I won't be coming back..so they can scan whatever they like. I've just about had enough of the American police state and will be leaving the country for good.
another reason why i'll never cross the border from canada again. canada is a pretty harsh police state, but not nearly as bad as the usa (or britain, it's 1984 there from now on) I used to go down to Bellingham, WA for cheap goods, but I don't think I'm welcome there anymore. I always feel like I'm in danger when I cross the border, like some crackhead is going to shoot me with a handgun. Plus they'd send me to jail for all the BC Bud I smoke heh ;) Nobody I know could take their car across the border without it getting seized.
Well, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. If by average, you mean well educated white person, I could agree - there's nothing you couldn't do. However, on the whole, and providing for rare exceptions, most people have little chance of success. Let me illustrate with a concrete example, and that is of transportation.
In the vast majority of American cities, without a car you are stuck with terrible and nearly unfunded mass transit. With a vehicle, your average commute is 20 minutes. Relying on local mass transit usually triples your commute time. So, assuming an 8 hour workday and 6 hours of sleep, you lose 10% of your free time to not having the car, assuming that you only leave the house to go to work. Add in trips to the grocery store and the bank, and you're talking about hundreds of hours lost each year.
Lots of little things add up over time. For instance, my grandfather bought me my first computer when I was 12. My grandmother gave me my first car when I was 16. A year later a friend of my fathers needed someone to type things up for him, and knew I was good with computers, and I had reliable transportation. So, I got my first job, where I learned valuable business skills, almost entirely because of the generosity of my relatives and the people I knew.
Someone with my same IQ and innate work ethic may not be so lucky. Maybe their entire family is poor, maybe their parents are dead or their sister is dying from some treatable disease but can't get insurance. I say this because I have known people similar to myself, who were never given the same chance. Some made it, but most did not. And if it comes down to giving a millionaire a bigger tax bill or giving every person the same opportunities, I choose the disadvantaged, because frankly, they are more valuable.
Also, I understand that the only thing worse than debutantes and their trust funds are the brilliantly successful and ethically challenged multi-millionaires who are willing to do anything for power. The people who believe the fact that they have power justifies whatever action they take, who actually complain when there are rules that prevent them from destroying the environment to take a profit, or from kicking out tenants before they have time to find a new place to live.
These are the people who sell cigarettes, who deny valid insurance claims, who sell landmines, who calculate the lawsuits from wrongful death versus the cost of a product recall. Chaplin called them "...unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts."
Or as they are known in America, great businessmen.
The choice is ours. But first we have to recognize what the reality is before we can determine whether we want to choose the same path or start a new one. How do you want to spend a quarter of a million dollars? Is it one day's worth of ammunition in a predator drone, or is it enough to feed a hundred thousand starving children for a month? Should the tax break give the millionaire another statue in his garden, or the tax increase provide a year's education for a child? There is a balance to these questions, but I am terrified that they aren't even being asked anymore.