All the posts indicate why PC speech is so wretched.
“Racial Profiling” is by definition wrong, it’s a loaded term.
Criminal Profiling is what’s at stake here – that’s why everyone is getting bent around the axle on this, because they are arguing about two distinctly different things. To equate the two is wrong.
Fingerprinting and DNA – coming to America and living in America is going to be different in the future, yessiree.
And? Does the state’s possession of your fingerprint (only one?) prevent you from speeding or driving recklessly? Does it make it easier to apprehend you if you do cross a solid yellow line or drive drunk?
I suspect that the taking of fingerprints at the time one obtains a driver’s license is so that when they find your body in the twisted wreckage at the bottom of an arroyo, they can more easily identify it.
The principle arguments against fingerprinting visitors from selected countries are that
This is not an issue of rights. It is an issue of making feel-good promises that cost money from which we will gain no security.
As I stated quite simply, if they are entering the country illegally, YES, they should be thrown the fuck out. As an addendum, they should first be held to see if they are criminals or terrorists, and prosecuted as such if they are.
Precisely why they should not be allowed to enter the country!
If someone can’t prove who they are, we just let them in on good faith? Not in this day and age.
I didn’t introduce it, I addressed it. And it is pertinent.
Here is a start.
This site is one way of getting the fingerprint quickly digitized.
http://www.digitalpersona.com/
And here is a site chock full of image recognition software / hardware info.
http://www.ph.tn.tudelft.nl/PRInfo/software.html
Given Americans’ renown for making things happen when we have to, I am quite confident we could have a system in place rather quickly if we set our minds to it.
Are you serious? That’s the best your imagination can come up with? (sorry for the hostility, I’ve read many of your other posts and feel sure that I remember you as an intelligent person, I’m wondering why you feign ignorance here) How about this… if you get caught speeding they run your ID and check for bench warrants. If you are wanted for murder, rape, armed robbery, etc. you will not be released with a $75 citation. Same goes for terrorism.
However, they don’t run your fingerprints on a traffic bust. Why? Because despite the whiz-bang stuff you have pointed to, we do not yet have an effective method of quickly processing fingerprints electronically. If an actual crime is committed and fingerprints are found, copies are lifted and sent off to the FBI for matching–a process that takes a day or more. The government’s AFIS system (for matching prints electronically) has been in place since the early 1980s, but it is still not performing instant matches. Places such as Texas where fingerprinting has already begun can use fingerprint matching to validate identities (similar to the DigitalPersona to which you linked). Those systems, however, are designed to show that person A with fingerprint xyz123 is, indeed, person A. Each of those systems appears to require that the name and fingerprint are known in advance. (This means that Sam Jones can’t use an identity card borrowed from Ahmed Moabur. It does not mean that the system will correctly identify Ahmed Moabur if he re-enters the country as a new person named Mohammed Rashid–by the time the system notes that Ahmed Moabur and Mohammed Rashid have the same prints (if it ever does), Mr. Rashid will have already passed into the country unless we are going to impose a forty-eight hour entrance wait on all aliens.)
I am not claiming that the technology is impossible. (I even noted that it would sort of make sense to begin collecting information from all aliens, now, so that we would have a reasonable database when the technology catches up to the demand.)
I am only pointing out that imposing the proposed rules (with the limited technology in place at this time in the real world) will not accomplish what the administration pretends it might and that imposing those rules on a pre-selected group of countries is futile (or counter-productive) when we already know that members of al Qaeda are living (or can come up with passports to pretend they are living) in a whole range of other countries. (The announcement of the program has simply told the terrorists that they need to secure (or create counterfeit) passports from other countries before they enter the U.S.)
In other words, the proposal pretends to expect more than it can deliver–and then shorts itself out by arbitrarily restricting the information that it could use in the future.
You used the example that you could now exchange about 500 bytes of text data (by my estimate) as proof that it would not take much to implement a separate system that would require at least two separate levels of engineering (and massive amounts more data) in a short period of time.
Certainly the exchange of data should build on what is in place, but the assumption that we can do X in a few months? years? because we were able to do Y in 40 years is not a very good analogy. There is no way that we would need 40 years to build a fingerprint storage and recognition system hooked up to every port of entry in the U.S. However, assuming that it could be done in some vaguely defined “short” period of time is also not realistic.
And, of course, what is the fingerprint going to prove? If we already have the fingerprints of a terrorist, I would hope that we are going to have him locked up. If we don’t already have the fingerprints of a terrorist, then his prints simply go sit in the AFIS system with the other 10 billion prints waiting for us to take the prints from a captured suspect, match them, and say, “Yep. He was an alien who entered the country.”
Again, I have not argued that we should never fingerprint aliens. I have pointed out that the current proposal by the adminsitration promises more than it can hope to deliver while simultaneously harming what it might be able to do in the future.
First of all, let me state that I’m not against any nation seeking to establish the identity of those people wishing to enter its borders and nor do I believe that some form of physical identification check is unreasonable.
I think, though, that there are two different dynamics operating here. One is the need to give evil an identifiable face, coupled with the belief that by doing so we can somehow ensure that such events never happen again. The other is the “do something, anything” mindset to which other posters have referred.
Based on what we do know about the events of September 11, there is little reason to assume that finger-printing all Middle Easterners (or indeed all people entering the United States) would have prevented those events from occuring. The technology certainly exists to digitally store fingerprints and to compare them (it’s used on prison visitors routinely here), but beyond allowing identification of people who commit crimes while in the United States, I’m not sure how much value it has in preventing terrorism.
All the sophisticated technology in the world (even it it was practical to use it) isn’t going to help much in identifying unknown terrorists before the fact, which is presumably what we are aiming to do. And even known terrorists can almost certainly come in “under the radar” if they spend enough money (don’t ever underestimate either the technology or the wealth to terrorist organisations can have access - Aum provides a chilling example of both). Those who wish to avoid being identified and who have the resources to purchase or otherwise create anonymity will be able to do so short of some Gattica-style biometric identification system being in place which identifies every individual on the planet at birth and which is utterly unbreachable.
It was on the news recently that we should expect Palestinian suicide bombers to start appearing in the US. Would fingerprinting Palestinians–both nationals and those seeking entry into the States–prevent this from happening?
tomndebb, thanks for clearing that up. I think I understand your point now. I guess short of them having the ‘digitalpersona’ type equipment on hand in every cruiser there is still no way to be certain that the print on the card is the same as the print on the person. However, when applying for the drivers license or any other ID, fingerprinting still serves as a more reliable foundation for identification than mere documents don’t they? A person might still be able to lie about their name, age, address, etc and get a ‘fake ID’ but at least there would be a match established between facial photo and fingerprints. And if those fingerprints were cross checked against a criminal database it would help catch criminals right there at the DMV.
Drivers licenses are widely accepted forms of positive ID. Most laymen never question them. Sure, people can still drive without them if they obey all the laws and never get pulled over, but there are many things they can not do without them. So, once someone is here in the country that sort of system would be beneficial. For it to work against terrorism it would have to be applied at the borders as well.
This is not the question I would ask.
My questions would be:
– Will said fingerprinting would help,
– how much would it help?
– What is the cost, financially and otherwise?
ISTM it would help by keeping terrorists whose fingerprints are on file out of the country. It might allow us to build up a data base of visitors whose pattern of visits might identify them as worthy of investigtion. I do not know just how valuable these two items would be.
My guess is that over time a fingerprinting system would gain in value, as we devised methods to take advantage of it.
I’m guessing you just mean Middle Eastern terrorists.
So now I’m wondering how many terrorists have fingerprints on file, and how strongly those fingerprints indicate future terrorist activities. If you can keep a notorious terrorist out of the country, I think that’s wonderful. But how many terrorists are notorious enough to not only have their fingerprints on file, but to have their fingerprints flagged as belonging to a terrorist?
Here’s a NY Times editorial from a few days ago which is very much on point:
(Requires free registration to access link)
“Handling Foreign Visitors”
Well, I think todays announcement will lead the way to start fingerprinting everyone coming into the country.
And so close after Tom Ridge gets a cabinet post…
I could have sworn I responded, but I don’t see my post anywhere, so here goes again:
Perhaps you could restrict your criticism to what I actually said, not
what you imagine I meant?
Heaven forbid people might actually discuss issues!
No, I should just accept that anything anoyne say must be true.
:rolleyes:
Did anything pld said in that Pit thread sink in?
Biggirl
Yes, there is a great danger in actually trying to understand my position.
It would make it harder to twist my words to something I never said.
Chula implied that the anthrax sender(s) was/were white Americans. I
replied that I did not know of any evidence proving them to be such. And
you conclude that I must think they’re Arab? Where do you get this stuff?
The danger doesn’t come from trying to understand your position. The danger comes from asking you to explain it. This is what you said:
I gave what I thought you meant and asked you to explain or clarify.
Thanks for the clarification. I think.
Eve, thank you for citing this NY Times editorial. Sadly, many editorials in that once-fine newspaper suffer from weak reasoning. Some NY Times editorial writers would get ripped to bits by the GD panel. This one is stronger than some, because it does offer justifications. I will take a whack at it.
I do not believe it is intolerant to have greater checks for visitors from countries that pose greater danger.
His plan would also require them to register with the government if they stay 30 days or longer. This is a poorly conceived and inadequate substitute for the serious overhaul of the immigration system that should be among Washington’s most urgent priorities.
[/quote]
It’s weak argument to suggest that we ingore this plan because some other solution is ostensibly better, especially because:
– The alternative isn’t even even defined; just “serious overhaul”
– There’s no evidence that the alternative would word better
– The alternative isn’t even on the table AFAIK
These are reasonable, if unrermakable, observations.
AFAIK the proposal is to fingerprint visitors from certain countries, not based on the religion of the visitor.
An “illusion of security.” This is dredging the bottom of the rhetorical barrel. The Times is saying that even if fingerprinting helps protect Americans, it might help us less than we expect.
This is an all-or-nothing argument. The Times says, if we can’t get a fully effective overhaul, we should do nothing. This is preposterous in the political arena, where compromise is inevitable.
One annoying thing about the editorial is that it appears to this reader as dishonest. IMHO the Times doesn’t like anything that smacks of profiling. In this case, the “profiling” is legal and reasonable. The Times’s arguments do not sound like their real reasons.
Legal, probably. Reasonable? Nah, a waste of time and effort.
As has already been pointed out in several posts on this thread, the announcement that only persons from a limited number of countries will be watched simply notifies al Qaeda that they must now provide passports from other countries to any of their operatives. As so often happens, profiling produces either self-fulfilling prophecies or diverts energies and resources from legitimate analysis. We will now waste a lot of time and money detaining innocent students from Syria while someone with a French passport blows up some nuclear reactor.
The proposed regulation would apply to visa holders who have already been admitted. Of course, the US has no legal authority to legislate outside of its territory. It’s not as if the US government was planning on going into Saudi Arabia and fingerprinting everyone.
If you look at the Constitution, you will see that with few exceptions, rights apply to “people,” not citizens. For example, the 14th Amendment states that “[n]o state shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Fingerprinting is unreasonable and a waste of time and effort? Is that from your criminal investigation experience?
And where is the basis of your assertion that only persons from a limited number of countries will be watched? And fingerprinting is not detaining. they have to go through a process to enter this country anyways with applications and often interviews. This will be just another step. And as I have stated before, inconevienience is not a priority when it may actually deter or identify terrorists.
To me there are several reasons why fingerprinting would be a good idea. Although I do concede the fact that it will use up valuable resources and have some privacy issues, and is not the end-all solution to terrorism, the pros outweigh the cons. And we can always put the cost on the visitors themselves, in higher application fees and such, if we do not have the resources .
First of all, on the issue of deterence, this alone is enough for me to agree with it. Sure they can find other nationalities who may not be fingerprinted. But that is more trouble for them and in some cases it may be too much trouble or impossible to circumvent the fingerprinting. Although it is not impossible, it is much harder to fake your fingerprints than it is to just acquire fake identification papers, wich currently is the only way our people have a way to identify most foriegn visitors.
Secondly, it is an almost absolute indentification tool. It will give those that need it another resource to use to help keep track of and identify those that may pose a threat.
And third, if they are able to transcend from just fingerprint to
Biometrics, then it would give them an almost invaluable tool to even instantly identify and stop of apprehend terrorists before the fact.
With the incapability of our government to currently keep track of, or identify, foreign nationals in our country, they need something to help give them a more valuable form of id, and a stepping stone for better tools. And fingerprinting is a logical first step.
I don’t know where people get the idea that fingerpinting is somehow the only thing they plan on doing to increase their abilities to identify or fight terrorism.
As I stated before It is perfectly legal to fingerprint, even citizens, if there is compelling state interest. You may be just clarifying to LolaCocaCola about non-citizens Constitutional rights. If so disregard.
My appoligies. The second quote, of course, was from chula and not tomndebb. Wish you could edit your post.
The “limited number” comes directly form the source cited in the OP, I believe it was 22 in all.
<snip>
True enough, but what makes you think it’d be all that hard or inconvenient to operate though other countries or recruit members locally. John Walker Lindh immediately springs to mind, as does Reid and this guy
I can’t argue with you there, as far as an identification tool goes, but what about the terrorist we don’t know, how will it stop them?
As in the previous example, only those terrorist we currently know, but what of the potential terrorist?
Again I don’t really have a disagreement with fingerprinting visitors but the current plan seems short sighted. If we Dopers can figure out ways to circumvent it, what makes you think Al-Queda can’t? If we’re going to do it, it should be for all visitors not just selected countries. And of course you’re right, we should add more technology as it becomes available. But this plan still appears to me as “were doing something” measure.
Apparently, Attorney General John Ashcroft according to CNN:
Similar comments from the Christian Science Monitor
Note that I have not opposed a return to enforcement of the 1952 law requiring all visa applicants to be fingerprinted. The new game is stupid because it simply tells the terrorists to buy or forge passports from countries not on the list–exempting them from examination.
And, as Congressman Conyers noted in the same article
I do not believe Ashcroft’s claim that random fingerprint matching can be effectively accomplished in three minutes. That notwithstanding, the reason that I believe that the fingerprinting as described by the Justice Department is not reasonable and is a waste of time has nothing to do with your strawmen argument that fingerprinting is not detention (I have seen no one claim that it was).
No one has to fake their fingerprints–they need only show up with a passport from a non-surveyed country. If the Feds intended to institute fingerprinting for all visa applicants, it might actually provide some deterence. The procedure was dropped in the 1980s because the INS claimed that it was too much effort and created too many delays. (An INS spokesman in the CSM article repeats that the effort to extend fingerprinting to even the couple dozen countries, so far, will be a horrific effort.) OK. So find a way to streamline the process. However, we are still looking at the fact that it will only deter people who already have fingerprints recorded with the FBI, Interpol (if they are willing to share data), or Scotland Yard, etc. A terrorist who has no record has nothing to fear. Ashcroft made a big point that we had stopped 67 bad guys out of 1,400 applicants in a trial run. Since the government has not trotted out any of these guys with a big news flash that we caught a terrorist, it seems pretty clear that they found a bunch of drug dealers and other non-terrorist crooks who have already been through the system. How many of the hijackers had already been through the U.S. court system?
I repeat. If they want to re-institute fingerprinting of all visa applicants, fine. Announcing that they are going to pick and choose who to watch renders the program wasteful and ineffective.