I was all set to post on this thread, but it has turned into yet another US-bashing fest.
We should all be aware now that the US has begun taking a DIGITAL fingerprint and a DIGITAL photo of visitors from countries not on the Visa Waiver Program. This is in addition to requiring a passport and a visa.
This extra 15seconds of hassle has led to worldwide criticism of the US for perceived violations to individual privacy.
The argument for debate is not the EXTRA measures, but ANY of the measures the US applies. What is a country allowed to require of visitors? If a digital fingerprint and a digital photo is too much, is a passport? Is a visa? Should any information be required? How much information is too much?
My view is that a country has the right to know who is entering their country, how long they plan to stay, and the nature of their visit. The added steps the US now use are simply an extention of the first point. Forging a passport is just too easy, ESPECIALLY in the countries not included in the Visa Waiver Program.
Yet they musn’t be surprized if the rest of the world does just the same with US’ers.
In fact: it would help the rest of the world to identify the criminals coming from the USA to persue their dirty businesseselswhere, no?
And in fact:
Who says that no US terrorist plans to attack a plane from a country he perceives as “an enemy”, or even from a country that was against the US invasion of the sovereign nation Iraq.
Bush made it clear (“he wanted to kill my dad”) to the US’ers that the hunt is open for everyone who has something against an other person, to go where that person is and kill him and his family murdering thousands of people on the way to it.
So I suggest that every nation starts fingerprinting and taking pics from every US’er that crosses its border in order to prevent further escalation, no?.
I think the issue is not what the US can or not do… they have the right to hassle travelers as much as they want to.
The problem is that they are putting a lot of hurdles and complications for wannabe travelers that seem very little effective against terrorists. If they had claimed it was against illegal immigration few would have minded… now when they claim its to monitor possible terrorists and then include countries that have never spawned terrorists… people are rightly pissed.
To get a VISA to the US is now such a hassle and then they still want to fingerprint and photograph. To have a valid VISA to the US costs a Brazilian who doesn't live in the 3 major cities around US$ 300-400 and no guarantees given. Only to have the VISA... plus the time to travel... wait in line... the interview, etc...
I agree the fingerprinting isn't such a big deal... but add it to VISA requirements... taking off shoes... 2-3 hour delays and then facing the possibility of being barred just the same because you have some wierd surname sure makes for travelling to the US an inconvenience. European travelers might not need VISAs and fingerprinting but they have faced awkward security measures nonetheless.
Finally... would US citizens accept similar procedures internally for security reasons ? Being monitored in such a manner ?
Thank you both for your knee-jerk US bashing. But you failed to address the original point: if taking a digital finger print is wrong, then what is right? What is the ideal solution?
What does your country require? Does it require a visa? A passport? Does it differentiate between countries?
Aldebaran, what is required to travel from one Middle Eastern state to another? Are you even allowed to travel freely? Does your country allow citizens from Israel?
Rashak Mani, what is required for you to travel to Columbia, Puru, Bolivia, etc?
Secondly, I encourage you to read through the Visa Waiver Program . Are these unreasonable requests? Is your beef with the US? Or with your home country for not signing up?
Finally, I want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between requiring a DIGITAL finger print of a person’s index finger (process requires about a second) and Brazil requiring INK finger prints of all 10 fingers (process that takes several minutes).
I was photographed, fingerprinted and darn near tatooed to get into Saudi. I drew the line at anal probing however.
Go ahead, make the Saudis smile for the camera.
A bigger issue for those of us who live “overseas” is that the US now requires expensive pain-in-the-butt visas for people transiting. That is to say if you want to go from Saudi to Brazil, you need a visa if you change planes in New York.
I must say that despite of being an easy victim of air sickness I developped a preference to fly because using a plane makes it more easy to get rid of all those chains. By some miracle I always escape and get where I want to be. I even get back every time again.
If you want to have information on Visa requirements for ME and other countries, I suppose that there is a lot about that spread all over the internet.
So I guess you find it not a good idea for other nations to require a Visa for US’ers and to make pics and fingerprints when they enter and leave the country?
Most South American countries as far as I know only require us to have a valid Passport... no VISA. Europe doesn't require VISAs either. So the US is by far the most bothersome to get into.
Fingerprinting in Brazil has changed to only the right thumb due to delays. We don't have digital fingerprinting because we haven't spent US$380 million. It was hastily established and I won't defend the silly delays it causes. They should have sent many more people to work on this for sure.
Emac, forgot to answer your question about “ideal solution”.
There is none.
But an attempt to work one out for the future would be more cooperation among secret services world wide, and thus being able to come to a database that would at least start to look like one that can give some useful information.
Do you really think every possible terrorist is going to provide his picture and fingerprints on forehand in order to be recognisable at entrance of the USA?
It is like looking at the idiotic questions on a US Visa application. As if any terrorist is going to fill in he is planning terrorism (same for other categories).
As for those already “known” so called… Sorry, but they change identities at will as they change appearance and looks. Not to speak about the difficulties for Westerners not familiar with foreign names and their differences in spelling… We have seen a few examples of that only recently.
I think this whole system is going to create a lot of confusion, a lot of errors, a lot of angry,mistreated, frustrated people who see themselves being treated as criminals and a lot of people who wont travel to the USA anymore until this last crazyness is over, or at least internationalized on an acceptable scale.
And counting for everyone who wants to go anywhere.
If that becomes the international trend, then I shall be among the first to applaud it. Although it can easily be abused by whatever government that wants to make a case against one of its citizens. I don’t think this needs a drawing.
They do. That is why some countries do not require a visa. Those countries share their passport data so that when you go from the US to Britain they will scan your passport and compare relavent data. Your name is also compared with a long list of criminals and {gasp} terrorists.
For all other countries, a visa is required for that purpose.
No, I don’t expect them to. I expect the CIA and other agencies to compile names, photos, and fingerprints of criminals and terrorists. When said criminal or terrorist tries to get into the US they will be idendified by either the name, photo, or finger print.
Most importantly, passports are easy to forge. REALLY easy. Especially in third world countries. Having a record of the visitor’s finger print and photo makes this slightly more difficult both enterting AND exiting the country. Exiting is an important point.
It would be ideal if nobody needed a visa to travel. Unfortunately there are too many countries that can’t get their sh*t together enough to ensure reasonable security.
And that last point really is the issue at hand. There are countries that willingly or ignorantly allow terrorists (or freedome fighters) to train and plot in their country without any regard for where they may go. If your country lacks a system to prevent that, it is not the US’s fault for slowing you down.
So again I’ll ask, are you angree at the US for requiring a visa, or at your country for not meating basic security requirements?
FWIW, passports in some form or another (letters of marque or transit, etc.) have been around for hundreds of years. The US has required them since 1915.
Emac, I didn’t refer to the usual passport data.
I refer to exchange of any valuable information, which isn’t exchanged yet and shall not be exchanged in the near future.
And when you talk about passports being easy to forge “in third world countries especially”, don’t let me laugh here.
US’ers don’t even have a identity card. No need for forgery there since it doesn’t even exist.
I would also prefer that you wouldn’t use vulgarity when you write to me. And that you would refrain from wildy throwing around some descriptions of me being the citizen of a nation that trains terrorists or supports terrorism.
On the other hand it is worldwide known that the USA trains and uses a terrorist organisaton named CIA, no?
And it is known worlwide that currently the USA invaded and bombed into oblivion a sovereign nation and keeps it occupied. Which is an act of international terrorism on an incredible large scale.
So instead of throwing mud to others, you maybe would like to clean up your mess at home first?
We DO face some of these security measures. I’m a 6 foot tall, all American Eagle Scout and they made me take of my shoes many a time. And we all have delays in the hours. I can’t take my swiss army knife with me, they open my bags and pat me down. Do I complain? No, I expect it.
If it’s such a burden for you, lobby your govenrment to huddle up with the US government and get on the same page. And look on the bright side, they aren’t making you wait in quarentine camps for days or press you into their navy. Life’s a hell of a lot easier than it has been.
I was talking of fingerprinting every american and monitoring their movements internally. That they pat down and take shoes off everyone has been done to all for some time... even grannies I've heard.
Let me reinforce though how rough handling of foreigners has happened... small number ok... but still the public perception overhere at least is that Airport thugs have a free hand at just sending back people with barely an excuse. (One such case the guy had a normal VISA instead of a work VISA since as a journalist he was going to cover a computer event.) So people don't care if in truth fingerprinting is 20 secs only and that "honest" people have little to fear but delays. Many simply give up and take vacations in Europe instead... or take their business elsewhere.
That’s a very good point, but I see this as a good thing. Initially people (in non visa except countries) will look at their vacation plans and decide to travel some where easier to get it. That will cause a short drop in tourism to the US, until another Bali style bombing. If its easy for you to get in, its easy for criminals to get in.
So now the US is harder to get into for both you and the criminals which means chances are you’ll both end up at the same place. My guess is that two things will happen: First people will have a “perceived” increase in safety when traveling to the US or any other country with these new measures (the US will not be the only one) so tourism will INCREASE. Secondly, people will notice a trend in where criminals go and start lobying their government to increase security.
Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Identity cards? When you stop laughing, tell me if you agree that some countries have passports that are easier to forge than others.
And I would prefer that you didn’t call the US or the CIA a terrorist organization.
Impossible, since I don’t know what nation you are a citizen of.
Just for giggles: It is also known worldwide that the US invaded and bombed into oblivion a sovereign nation that had just invaded and bombed into oblivion a sovereign nation and kept it occupied. There are a lot of countries that would fall under your “terrorist” description. Has your country tried to invade or bombed into oblivion a sovereign nation recently? Does my country count as a terorrist? We currently occupy Afganistan, but we let the US bomb it into oblivion first (and 4 our our soldiers).
I assure you I give my own country no less slack than any other. We just started to require ALL foreigners to get a new identity card which stranded hundreds of students. Read up on this issue and tell me if what the new US measures are worse.
One thing you and ** Rashak Mani ** have overlooked in all this is that a big part of the reason for the visa hassles here in the US aren’t terrorism related.
As far as I know, we’re one of the very few nations that have serious illegal immigration problems. It’s not uncommon at all to have people swim the Rio Grande, come in on tourist visas and stay, get smuggled in shipping containers across the Pacific, etc… and usually not for political asylum reasons.
The sheer number of people who want to leave wherever they live and come live/work here obviously means they can’t all come, so we have a pretty byzantine system of visas and resident alien status to allow some of them to stay.
And just so you won’t think that it’s some kind of plot to keep “brown” people out- a British friend of mine has had to go through hell to get a resident alien card (green card), and she’s young, native English speaking, white and has 2 Master’s degrees from a US University. She’s still had to go through all the crap that every other immigrant or visitor to the US have had to go through.
Another reason things are tighter in the US is because we do not have a relatively homogenous society like say… the UK. In other words, if I was to go to the UK and illegally work, being an American, I would stand out from the vast run of English/Scots/Welsh/N. Irish by virtue of speech. Not so easy to blend in there, and it’d be even harder somewhere like say… Mexico, where I’d stand out even more. Not so in the US- in major cities, a person of ANY nationality won’t stand out- there are so many Arabs, Hispanics, Africans, etc… that one illegal immigrant won’t stand out at all.
This fingerprinting/picture thing strikes me as more of an information gathering tool- i.e. if they bust some guy in Teaneck, NJ for being in league with Al-Qaida, and find some other guy’s fingerprints on stuff, they have a chance of finding out who he is if he’s from another country. Since the number of domestic terrorists is relatively low compared to foreign ones, this isn’t an unreasonable thought.
Now how they go about it is another thing- our customs and immigration is enough of a pain-in-the-ass for citizens, that I can’t imagine it’s not far worse for visitors, so I can see how this could be one more cruddy thing to endure.
I mean valuable information gathered by secret services world wide on all sort of criminals. And that includes information on possible or potential terrorists. If you think such information flows unlimited from one nation to an other then I think you must review those idea’s.
Can you tell me how on earth a picture and a fingerprint can add to detect entering criminals on airports/border controls if they aren’t known as such by the receiving country. And can’t be known as such.
Why shouldn’t I call the CIA a terrorist organisation? Because their terrorism is planned and financed in the USA and excercised elswhere? Isn’t that what many terrorist organisations do? Why would I call them terrorists and exclude the CIA ?
May I ask you if it is one of your hobbies to declare everyone from whom you don’t know the nationality to be a citizen of a nation that supports and/or finances terrorism?
If yes: Why?
Identity card: a document distributed by the State to its citizens and on which is noted name, first names, address(es), date and place of birth and the personal number under which the holder is inscribed in the Central State Register by birth.
A card which makes it thus possible to trace the holder and his personal record whenever someone having that authotiry wants to do that.
A card every citizen needs to have with him/her whenever he leaves home.
A card needed for every legal transaction in order to prove your identity.
A card needed for every contact with the countries administration on no matter which level or department for the same reason.
Thus also needed to be able to receive an international passport.
In fact: A card that at first sight looks like the one presented under your link.
In my opinion every passport or identity card can be falsified rather easily. Just like every banknote can be falsified.
Your picturing of the crimes committed by the USA seems to be a bit overshadowed by your obvious admiration of their actions.
And for you information: My nations (yes, there are two) aren’t comitting the crimes the USA commits.
If they were, I would move out in no time and take my residence elswhere. Preferable in a nation that doesn’t use my tax money for murdering innocent people elswhere in order to serve its own hallucinant dream of world dominance and exploitation.
I know that many nations are more or less guilty of participating in that race or did so in the past, yet in my opinion nobody can beat the USA to it in this period of human history.
So I’m afraid that nobody shall ever be able to make me move overthere.
It is on the other hand indisputable that I still contribute by paying directly and indirectly taxes overthere, while having no say at all when it comes to elect politicians since I’m not a US citizen.
It is a bit a difficult moral position to be in, but I’m in this not a unique case on this globe.
Salaam. A