Fingerprinting, to be effective, needs that one checks the fingerprint against a database that will in turn spit out a “not found” or a “found” (in a nutshell). How difficult would it be for any terrorist organization to use people that has no been previouly linked to terrorism? Or people that do not look or would be suspected to be your typical terrorist (assuming there is such thing), you know, old ladies, young beautiful women, teenagers, American citizens, European citizens, seemingly young successful yuppies, etc.
As a foreigner I have no problem with complying with my host country’s regulations (within reason), I just refrain from travelling there if it is too much trouble. Still, it just looks to me like counterproductive and a terrible waste of money, but it is not my money anyways.
Funny, what I read was that a “limited number” of countires would be fingerprinted, not watched. In every single post I have made to this topic I have stated several tims that this is not the only tool they would use. Yet most of the nay-say comments still argue that it will not stop all terrorism so it is not feasable. I will not argue this again. And will ignore all posts insinuating that fact, without an argument regarding the necessity of it being the absolute that they deem to require of it. Not because of contempt , or that it isn’t debate worthy, but because I hate repeating myself.
**tomndebb
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First youargue that it isnt feasable, or resource worthy on our " limited technology in place at this time ", then you state it will only be worthy if we do everyone. Wich is it?
Like you I agree we should try to cover all bases, And I am assuming this is a first step if they eventually find that it is resource worthy to fingerprint everyone.
If they are from a mideast/muslim country then they will be fingerprinted. Some may fear that.
**Mighty_Girl
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Where do you think the fingerprints come from that find a match to begin with? If it is not found do you think they just throw it away? They put it in the database so it can be found next time. And I am assuming I do not have to go into the many ways it can be effective once in the database. I know i am not the only one who reads Tom Clancey novels
My wife is an immigrant. I am well aware of all the trouble you folks already have to go through to get into this country and stay for any length of time. And having to have to sit in a crowded, noisy INS lobby myself, sometimes from opening till closing, I would think if fingerprinting is the proverbial straw, then too bad so sad.
I think many if not all of the Dopers are arguing is that is is an half-assed first step. If it’s resource worthy to target a few, then why build a system with loopholes in the first place? Personally I don’t give a damn about the resources involved, what I care about is the obvious ineffectiveness of the current plan.
Why? The 9-11 hijackers killed themselves to accomplish their mission, fingerprints in that case would have solved nothing. Same with the Suicide Bombers in Israel (as we’ve been led to expect to start occuring here), why would they fear being fingerprinted? These aren’t actions likely to be engaged in repetitively, at least not by the same agents.
I have consistently argued that it is a waste of time and money to do this if we target a limited number of countries. I have never claimed that taking all ther fingerprints was not feasible, only that making a huge investment to capture those fingerprints is wasteful if we limit ourselves to some small number of easily identified countries which al Qaeda and company can easily avoid.
The INS, itself, claims that going back to taking fingerprints will be a huge burden. Why bother if we then open the gates to let anyone in simply by pretending to come from a different country?
Hmmm, “From the bounty of his spirit, our beloved leader, Osama, has invested thousands of dollars in my training. We have all spents months of our lives preparing for this next assault against the Great Satan. I have written my farewells to my brothers and parents. I know that I will never again see the face of my true love. I am going forth, willingly, to sacrifice my life for the cause.
Ooooh! They want to take my fingerprints? I guess I’ll go home.”
You seem to have confused ‘profiling’ with ‘racial profiling’.
Racial profiling is using one criteria to stop/arrest people: Race.
Profiling is a science, used by every law enforcement agency in the world, which uses multiple traits, race being among them, to attempt to find people engaged in various crimes. If someone recently converted to Islam, (maybe while in prison), traveled to sunny Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the West Bank, and enjoyed listening to anti-American sermons and bomb-making tips, they fit a terrorist profile, whether they are from Yemen or Yugoslavia.
Profiling is NOT useless. The technique of profiling is used in many investigations. It is an excellent method of at least knowing where to start looking.
Profiling, as it exists, WOULD have gotten Lindh and the filthy bomber. If someone recently converted to Islam, (maybe while in prison), traveled to sunny Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the West Bank, and enjoyed listening to anti-American sermons and bomb-making tips, they fit a terrorist profile, whether they are from Yemen or Yugoslavia.
Of course, and this is a topic for another discussion, our legal system is near worthless in dealing with terrorists (who require preemptive action to effectively deal with). So even though ‘we got them’, barring a miracle, I bet these two get light sentences, if any at all.
Profiling as it is used in law enforcement is usually done after the commission of a crime.
There is little evidence that predictive profiling has a great deal of value in crime prevention.
Yes, it would have flagged Lindh but I don’t see how such flagging would have prevented him leaving the US and joining a group overseas.
I don’t know how many people enter the US from Middle Eastern countries each year (including US nationals returning from the Middle East), but I suspect the number is huge. I also suspect that there is very limited verifiable information available about the activities of those people in the nations from which they have come (and it’s their activities in countries outside of the US which would be of particular interest if you were using predictive profiling).
Assuming that someone does fit the terrorist profile outlined by Brutus, what do you do then? Do you simply deny them entry to the US? Do you allow them to enter the US but keep them under constant surveillance?
In other words, what practical steps to we take when someone wishing to enter (or re-enter) the US fits the “terrorist profile” but there is no specific information indicating that they are planning to commit harm against the US?
That is why I said our legal system is worthless (nearly) when dealing with terrorism.
Personally, I think it depends on whether or not the person is known to have engaged in terrorist activities, or has ‘simply’ trained to be a terrorist.
For a known terrorist, a blindfold, a cigarette, and a bullet are more then sufficient.
The real trick is with people like the dirty bomber. Much like in the upcoming movie ‘The Minority Report’, no crime has actually been commited yet, but we are next to sure that one will occur. I dunno. Maybe a ‘conspiring to be a asshole’ charge or similiar. At the very least, deny them entry to America until our legal system catches up.
