# Justice: Let's fingerprint all Middle Eastern visitors **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2002, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509 "2002-06-05T16:55:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/41 "2002-06-09T02:32:31Z")
> [@](#): > > What the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in China? You are saying that because the agencies cannot communicate with one another to begin with, that more information that would more than likely not be passed along is useless. Well, why don’t we just give up now then? **Or better yet why don’t we get them idiots to start communicating so that any new information we do get will be more effective?** (bolding mine) Exactly! Let us get these groups to _effectively_ communicate _appropriate_ information among themselves in a timely fashion. Therefore, _Rather than_ wasting hundreds of millions of dollars purchasing fingerprint kits, writing and publishing fingerprinting manuals, training INS agents (or whoever) to administer the fingerprinting in an effective manner, then spending another few millions to build facilities to house all the additional black-smudged index cards, and hiring (and training and writing and publishing manuals for) new people to spend their days sitting around comparing fingerprints against charts of (as yet unknown, and, thus, unrecognizable) terrorists, let us _instead_ spend that money to enhance the computer systems and communications skills of the existing departments. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/42 "2002-06-09T02:34:19Z")
> [@](#): > > If this country was 99 percent White, and one percent Black, and Whites were committing 51 percent of the crimes, with the 1% Blacks committing 49% of the crimes, would you still insist that Whites be fingerprinted because they “commit a majority of crimes”, even though the typical Black is many time more likely to be a criminal? I’m not insisting that whites or blacks be profiled or fingerprinted. I think profiling based on race is lazy and wrong. But even if I did agree with it, I would still say that it makes more sense to figure out who the average violent is if we’re weighing risks and practicality. Is the average black guy a criminal, or the average criminal a black guy? Listen up, **Barking Spider** : > [@](#): > > According to [Edward]Koch’s calculation, blacks, who make up 12 percent of the population, are committing 45 percent of violent crimes. And since 'for the most part only males are committing the crimes of violence…rougly 6 percent of the poplation is committing 45 percent of the crimes." Even if one accepts Koch’s statistics, one must judge his conclusion perposterous, for it would mean that every black male in America–the 6 percent in his equation–is engaged in acts of mayhem. In other words, even black lawyers, accountants, teachers, and salesmen who put in long hours at work are apparently getting their jollies…by cracking hapless innocents over the head… > > ``` > It is true, as Koch indicates, that blacks account for about 45 percent of those arrested for America's violent crimes. But it is not true that most black males are vicious. FBI statistcs show that blacks were arrested 245, 437 times in 1991 for murder, forcible rape. robbery, and aggravated assult. The country's total population then was just under 249 million, including nearly 31 million blacks and 15 million black males. If we assume that each arrest represents the apprehension of a separate individual, blacks arrested for violent crimes made up less than 1 percent of the black population in 1991--and just under 1.7 percent of the black male population...In other words, less than *one-tenth* of a percent of the population--not 6 percent--is committing 45 percent of violent crimes. > > ``` > > Excerpt from _The Rage of a Priviledged Class_ by [Ellis Cose](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060925949/qid=1023589355/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/104-2561556-1104732) Do you still think it makes since to target black males to fight crime? > [@](#): > > Evidently, you don’t know how to “do math”. As a product of a racist “affirmative action” program, it’s not surprising. Ad hominem attacks have no place in GD. If you can’t make a point without resorting to this, then get off the dance floor. Apologies for the double-post. ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Spider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Barking\_Spider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Spider)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/43 "2002-06-09T02:36:17Z")
Mmmm… lets try to reconcile these two posts: Monstro says: > [@](#): > > I’m not insisting that whites or blacks be profiled or fingerprinted. I think profiling based on race is lazy and wrong. Monstro said: > [@](#): > > Well if you’re in a predominantly white neighborhood your biggest threat are white males. Last time I checked, white folks commit more crimes than other folks. So does it not make sense to fingerprint all the white males and follow them around wherever they go? Why haven’t we been doing this, people! > > If we’re talking about crime and who should be profiled, I say it should be the group that commits the MOST of it. Let’s fingerprint these people and see if there’s any resulting change in the crime rate. If it works, then we can see about fingerprinting everyone else. Also, Edward Koch never claimed that all or most Blacks committed crimes. I personally do not believe that most Blacks are criminal. What he is saying is that Blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crimes. ---
**Author:** ![litost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@litost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/litost)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/44 "2002-06-09T02:50:56Z")
I am not clear on how they plan to use the fingerprints too. I read somewhere that they require these new finger-printed immigrants and non-immigrants to register at an INS office near the place of work or study, and do this periodically, and on changing places of stay etc. Seems like too much work for a terrorist to do! I think the first thing the Govt needs to do is get their systems working, the system of monitoring entries and exits, communication between the intelligence agencies, between intelligent agencies and local law enforcement, and finally quick and effective analysis of all the data. I see the need for current system-fixing more pressing than a new scheme which is only going to utilize precious resources. (IIRC, there was some fingerprintig scheme floated a while ago which is still not completed because of lack of resources) ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/45 "2002-06-09T03:06:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, Edward Koch never claimed that all or most Blacks committed crimes. I personally do not believe that most Blacks are criminal. What he is saying is that Blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crimes. Basically Edward Koch blamed black violence on the reason why blacks are discriminated against (or–if you want–“profiled”). Apparently, he thought (or still thinks) 12 percent of the population deserves to be stigmatized because of what 1/10 percent does. Folks cite terrorism as the reason why Muslims should be discriminated against. But the question then is do you end up doing far more harm than good? I think so. I reiterate: I think profiling based on things like race and religion is a bad idea. Profiling whites to lower the crime rate is just as senseless as profiling Muslims to lower the terrorism rate. If you can’t get that idea by “reconciling” my two posts, then I can’t help you. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/46 "2002-06-09T04:09:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barking Spider \* > If this country was 99 percent White, and one percent Black, and Whites were committing 51 percent of the crimes, with the 1% Blacks committing 49% of the crimes, would you still insist that Whites be fingerprinted because they “commit a majority of crimes”, even though the typical Black is many time more likely to be a criminal? It should be obvious to even the most innumerate that the answer to your question, given the choice between fingerprinting one or the other, is “Yes.” **Even if** 1% of the population, all of them black, committed 49% of crimes, you’re still _99 percent_ more likely to encounter a white person. Even given the disproportionate amount of crime committed, the chances of ever seeing a black individual in your scenario is so vanishingly small that the costs of **not** fingerprinting them are negligible. In fact, by fingerprinting the _white_ people, since you’re 99% more likely to encounter one, you can have a better effect on the larger (51%) portion of the crime rate. Don’t introduce math problems in GD if you don’t understand their implications. > [@](#): > > By the way, when are they going to break out those stamp pads for the Brothas? Charming. ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Spider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Barking\_Spider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Spider)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/47 "2002-06-09T04:32:17Z")
> [@](#): > > It should be obvious to even the most innumerate that the answer to your question, given the choice between fingerprinting one or the other, is “Yes.” Even if 1% of the population, all of them black, committed 49% of crimes, you’re still 99 percent more likely to encounter a white person. Even given the disproportionate amount of crime committed, the chances of ever seeing a black individual in your scenario is so vanishingly small that the costs of not fingerprinting them are negligible. In fact, by fingerprinting the white people, since you’re 99% more likely to encounter one, you can have a better effect on the larger (51%) portion of the crime rate. > > Don’t introduce math problems in GD if you don’t understand their implications. Actually, it seems to be you that has a problem with math. Lets say a town has 10, 000 residents. 99% White, which commits 51 percent of the crime, and 1% Black, which commits 49% of the crime. Therefore, the town would have 9, 900 Whites, and 100 Blacks. IWhites would commit 51% of the crime, Blacks, 49%. Whites commit a majority of crime. However, the typical Black would be many, many times more likely to commit a crime than a typical White. Even though you encounter far more Whites in this hypothetical town than Blacks, the fact is that the Blacks you encounter would be hundreds, or thousands of times more likely to be a criminal than the Whites you encounter. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/48 "2002-06-09T04:41:31Z")
**Snort** People like you, BS, are exactly the kind of people who are more afraid of shark attacks than they are of being hit by lightning. Or of plane crashes than car crashes. When your chance of encountering a situation is tiny, but the results of that encounter are likely to be more damaging, you tend to misestimate the risk. Sure you’re more likely to die in a given plane crash, but there are a lot more car crashes than plane crashes. Sure you’re more likely to die if you encounter a shark, but how often do you see sharks as compared to how often you see lightning? Trust me–in your scenario, it’s more sensible to focus on the 99% of the population that commits 51% of violent crime, because a given individual is more likely to encounter a member of that group. If you really believe otherwise, please please please tell me you work in the insurance industry, because I want to buy it from you. It will be dirt cheap compared to anything else I can get, based on your concept of risk estimation. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/49 "2002-06-09T05:17:02Z")
American Catholics are more likely to commit crime than an American Amish. I guess it’s time to fingerprint all the Catholics. Males with big muscles are more likely to commit crime than males with little muscles. Time to fingerprint all the weight-lifters. People who eat meat are more likely to commit crime than people who are vegetarians. Time to fingerprint all the weight-lifters. Folks in the South are more likely to commit crime than folks in the Pacific-Northwest. Time to fingerprint all of the Southerners. People with fucked-up teeth are more likely to commit crimes than people with nice, straight teeth. Time to fingerprint all the people with fucked-up teeth. People who read pornography are more likely to commit crimes than people who read Reader’s Digest. Time to fingerprint all the people with porn on their shelves. People born after the 1960s are more likely to commit crime than those born before the 60s. Time to fingerprint all the young folk. Finally… People who stay up past midnight to post on message boards commit more crimes than people who go to bed at 7:30 every night. Time to fingerprint all the people posting on this board this very minute! ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/50 "2002-06-09T05:34:48Z")
This quote from Ellis Cose doesn’t look right: > [@](#): > > According to [Edward]Koch’s calculation, blacks, who make up 12 percent of the population, are committing 45 percent of violent crimes. And since 'for the most part only males are committing the crimes of violence…rougly 6 percent of the poplation is committing 45 percent of the crimes." Even if one accepts Koch’s statistics, one must judge his conclusion preposterous, for it would mean that every black male in America–the 6 percent in his equation–is engaged in acts of mayhem. I cannot understand how the sentence I underlined follows from the hypothesis. From pure logic, in the most extreme (and unrealistic) case, only one single Black male might be commiting a huge number of violent crimes. In the real world, if 6% of the population is commiting 45% of the crimes, one cannot say what percentage of these 6% are commiting crimes without knowing how many crimes are being committed and how many crimes per criminal. > [@](#): > > **pldennisson** Even if 1% of the population, all of them black, committed 49% of crimes, you’re still 99 percent more likely to encounter a white person. Even given the disproportionate amount of crime committed, the chances of ever seeing a black individual in your scenario is so vanishingly small that the costs of not fingerprinting them are negligible. Actually the validity of this statement depends on who the “you” is – that is who the statement is meant to describe. If Blacks have higher crime rates than whites, then this is particularly a problem to _other Blacks_, who are their likeliest victims. This is why being overly sympathetic to Black criminals may result in worse life for their Black neighbors. ---
**Author:** ![milquetoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@milquetoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milquetoast)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/51 "2002-06-09T05:35:50Z")
While I don’t support the idea of racial profiling in finger printing, and I do think **Barking Spider** is presenting himself to be a racist bastard, I have to support him on the math. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\*Trust me–in your scenario, it’s more sensible to focus on the 99% of the population that commits 51% of violent crime, because a given individual is more likely to encounter a member of that group. \*\* If you’re going to try to put this in a “sensible” light, it’s far more cost effective (labor, materials, administration, etc.) to finger print the 100 residents of one race then it is to finger print the 9900 residents of the other race. And the policing agency will get a much better return on hauling in random supspects in Gestapo-like fashion. However, this math thing is all hypthetically anyway, so lets just flesh it out with some (hypothetical) detail. What if the 49% of the crime committed by the smaller community was petty larceny, but the 51% commited by the larger community ranged from assault to murder. I, as a law-abiding tax paying citizen, want my local police force to focus on the worse crimes (regardless of the race of the perps). So if you’re going to print 9900 people, just do the other 100 hundred at the same time and treat everyone as equal serfs. **pldennison:** my quote of your post and reference to it was not intended as an attack on you. Based upon your posts, I would assume our ideoloigies are not unalike. I just disagree with your argument about the numbers. (But I completely diagree with **BS** ’s outlook on life and his troll-like behavior.) ---
**Author:** ![LokiTheDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@LokiTheDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LokiTheDog)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/52 "2002-06-09T06:39:11Z")
I echo **Nouveau Bozo** , I support **Barking Spider** ’s math but not his opinions. Your math is wrong **pldennison**. If 51% of crimes were committed by members of a group consisting of 99 people, and 49% of crimes were committed by members of a group consisting of 1 person, you would very quickly eliminate almost half of all crimes (49%) by locking up that one individual. Lock up one individual from the other group and you reduce the crime rate by only about half a percent. As to the OP, I have no problem with fingerprinting EVERY person who enters the U.S. who is not a citizen of this country. Put one on their green card and one in a database. Whenever they have to show ID, match their ID fingerprint with the database and then cross reference it to a criminal/terrorist database. People act like the system to implement this would be fantastically complex. Bullshit. I have had my personal information cross referenced with a database in thousands of locations all across this country, and on a daily basis. Everytime I use my VISA ( credit card ) a computer rather quickly telephones another and performs several calculations before approving my purchase. Don’t tell me the infrastructure to implement a VISA ( green card ) verification would be impossible or too costly. It seems to work quite well when somebody stands to make a few cents off of it. It ought to work even better when our way of life is at stake. And all these ‘James Zogby’ types piss me off. Since when do we protect the rights of foreigners at the expense of our own citizens? People who live here should come first, people who want to live here come second, and people who come here illegally should be thrown the fuck out. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/53 "2002-06-09T14:06:18Z")
> [@](#): > > This quote from Ellis Cose doesn’t look right: > > > [@](#): > > > > * * * > > > > According to [Edward]Koch’s calculation, blacks, who make up 12 percent of the population, are committing 45 percent of violent crimes. And since **]'for the most part only males are committing the crimes of violence…rougly 6 percent of the poplation is committing 45 percent of the crimes**." Even if one accepts Koch’s statistics, one must judge his conclusion preposterous, for it would mean that every black male in America–the 6 percent in his equation–is engaged in acts of mayhem. > > * * * > > I cannot understand how the sentence I underlined follows from the hypothesis. From pure logic, in the most extreme (and unrealistic) case, only one single Black male might be commiting a huge number of violent crimes. I don’t see why you’re confused. Look at the bolding and then the part you underlined. Koch was obviously lazy with his math. It would be like me looking at the 60% crime rate for whites and saying that half of the total white population (35% of the total population) was committing 60% of the crime. This would be true only if ALL white males were committing acts of crimes. Koch’s 6% figure is an indictment against ALL black men. A more palatable conclusion would be that some subset of this population was criminal. Yet coming up with a number for this subset requires actually looking at the FBI crime statistics, and this is hard work for a busy politician. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/54 "2002-06-09T15:23:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LokiTheDog \* > \*\* > > People who live here should come first, people who want to live here come second, and people who come here illegally should be thrown the fuck out. \*\* I hope you meant that as a gross oversimplification. What about people who are genuinely fleeing persecution? Should we throw them the fuck out? Quite a number of genuine refugees appear at U.S border inspection points with no identity documents or fake identity documents, so it’s difficult to impossible to verify that they are who they say they are. As someone who used to work for the Office of the Immigration Judge and has witnessed hundreds of political asylum cases, I would venture a guess that the outcome of the case hinges on the credibility of the asylum applicant (and his/her family members, if they’re around to testify) about 90% of the time. I don’t see how it could be any other way, and still have the U.S. comply with its obligations under various international human rights treaties. And the hard part is that by the very nature of the situation, the terrorists have come from countries with crappy human rights situations. So how do you tell a terrorist from a genuine refugee, or even from just an average schmo trying to come complete a degree program or vacation for a couple of weeks or visit family members? I agree fully with those posters who say that a much better use of limited resources would be to a) improve the coordination and analysis of the information we already collect; and b) figure out, from an organizational standpoint, how to stop the ridiculous and apparently deadly turf wars between the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Of course, it’s absolutely mind-blowing that until now there’s been no comprehensive system to track entries and exits of nonimmigrants (i.e. anyone who isn’t a citizen or green card holder, although arguably we should be tracking green card holders too). But I’ve said that already in other threads. It’s an idea whose time is way overdue, and it’s pitiful that this country couldn’t get its act together in that department even after the first WTC bombing. Again, any project management geeks out there who have an idea just how huge an undertaking it would be to create INS computer systems that actually track what they’re supposed to track? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/55 "2002-06-09T16:47:37Z")
> [@](#): > > People act like the system to implement this would be fantastically complex. Bullshit. I have had my personal information cross referenced with a database in thousands of locations all across this country, and on a daily basis. Everytime I use my VISA ( credit card ) a computer rather quickly telephones another and performs several calculations before approving my purchase. Don’t tell me the infrastructure to implement a VISA ( green card ) verification would be impossible or too costly. It seems to work quite well when somebody stands to make a few cents off of it. It ought to work even better when our way of life is at stake. Why are you introducing the visa applications to the discussion? I have no problem, at all, with the government enhancing its ability to record and cross-check visas, green cards, and simple entries to the country. The discussion is specific to the idiotic notion that throwing fingerprints into the mix will do anything but waste resources. We are already recording visa applications and similar information; we are simply doing it inefficiently. The data required on those applications is fairly standard stuff, all of which can be gathered in text form. Fingerprints would need to be recorded on cards and transferred to electronic storage (or some new method of gathering them electronically at each point of entry in the U.S. will need to be developed) and digitized to be useful. Once we have gathered them, as has already been noted, the current technology does not allow us to retrieve the data in any method that is either efficient or accurate. The comparison to the bank cards is interesting in that the technology and infrastructure to handle those pieces of data (which is purely textual information, at probably fewer than 500 bytes per individual for the basic exchange) have been under development for about forty years. Do you really believe that we will accomplish anything by demanding that we simply copy a bunch of fingerprints on inadequate media in the next few months? If Bush & Co. proposed a system whereby _all_ aliens were fingerprinted and, simultaneously, proposed that we begin to invest in technology to record, digitize, and accurately retrieve and compare fingerprints, they could make the claim that they were laying the groundwork for some future terrorist assault when we were suddenly beset by Colombians, Indonesians, or Kiribatian freedom fighters. To propose that we simply collect a whole bunch of badly rendered index cards which we can process only poorly at this time, while focusing on specific countries who may be our best friends by the time that technology makes that collected data useful, is simply more feel-good smoke-and-mirror posturing. ---
**Author:** ![LolaCocaCola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7cd45c/32.png) [@LolaCocaCola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LolaCocaCola)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2002, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/56 "2002-06-10T00:47:31Z")
Constitutional protections aren’t extended to foreign nationals on the outside wanting to get in. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2002, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/57 "2002-06-10T02:17:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LolaCocaCola \* > \*\*Constitutional protections aren’t extended to foreign nationals on the outside wanting to get in. \*\* What’s your point? I didn’t see anyone claiming a Constitutional basis for their argument against fingerprinting. Anyway, once someone is on US soil, they are protected by the Constitution, though not to the same extent as citizens. ---
**Author:** ![LolaCocaCola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7cd45c/32.png) [@LolaCocaCola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LolaCocaCola)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2002, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/58 "2002-06-10T02:32:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by chula \* > \*\*What’s your point? I didn’t see anyone claiming a Constitutional basis for their argument against fingerprinting. Anyway, once someone is on US soil, they are protected by the Constitution, though not to the same extent as citizens. \*\* I was referring to the racial profiling argument. I wasn’t aware that foreign nationals were protected by the Constitution before they were admitted into the US. ---
**Author:** ![BeatenMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@BeatenMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeatenMan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/59 "2002-06-10T02:40:28Z")
Getting a green card is a privilege not a right. I had my fingerprint taken to get my drivers license. It is a privilege. Getting into the America is a privilege. ---
**Author:** ![BeatenMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@BeatenMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeatenMan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2002, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509/60 "2002-06-10T02:50:12Z")
Getting a green card is a privilege not a right. I had my fingerprint taken to get my drivers license. It is a privilege. Getting into the America is a privilege. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justice-lets-fingerprint-all-middle-eastern-visitors/112509.md?page=4)