I know the US has an information sharing agreement with Canada where the Canadian authorities get to look up the criminal records of Americans in exchange for our authorities being able to do the same for Canadians.
It’s not uncommon for people with minor convictions here in the United States to be turned around at the Canadian border, refused entry. Things like driving drunk will give them cause to turn a person around, even if that person won’t be driving in Canada.
I’m not sure this kind of information sharing is a good thing. On the one hand, it would be good to know if a convicted serial father-raper or mother-stabber is trying to come our way, but on the other hand, if a person has paid his debt to our society, do we really want to empower foreign nations to hold it against him?
What about countries with less-than-stellar records on human rights? Would we want Saudi Arabia to be informed about an 18 year old found guilty of having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend? Would we want Thailand to be informed about someone’s marijuana conviction, when they impose the death penalty for some drug crimes?
If the country’s legal system doesn’t afford the same protections ours does, can we even trust that the criminal record data they give us in return are a true representation of the person’s guilt or innocence?
Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? Are we actually deporting a lot of father-rapers and mother-stabbers because of this? Or are we simply ruining people’s vacations over petty offenses that occurred years ago?
Convictions are public records. Canada (and Saudi Arabia) can look them up as easily as anyone else, they don’t need a special agreement.
The article you link to is about fingerprint data, which you don’t mention in your OP. But generally speaking I think its a good idea for friendly gov’ts to share such data, with appropriate safe-guards against abuse (and it sounds like the Japanese-US program will have such safeguards).
I tend to think of this more in terms of what we, the U.S., get out of it. If we get to know that someone has a history of, say, smuggling ivory, it’s probably in our best interest to have access to another country’s criminal database.
If Canada doesn’t want drunk drivers in their country, it really isn’t any of our government’s business to try to keep information confidential that would help that person get into another country in spite of their laws.
If someone with a history of perverted crimes wants to go to Saudi Arabia, well, we can’t fix stupid.
I’m not sure why you think this is a problem? Japan has the right to control who enters their country, as does the US. The information was openly shared by the student in your link if I read that correctly, but even if they looked it up on a database I’m not sure what the problem is. You consider it a petty misdemeanor, Japan does not. It shouldn’t be America’s job to decide what other countries consider important.
Access to what databases? The student revealed his conviction in his paperwork to enter Japan. There was no database involved. And his conviction is presuambly a public record, so even if he hadn’t revealed it, the Japanese gov’t wouldn’t need any special permission from the US gov’t to find out about it.
The student applied for a visa ahead of time, was fully honest with the embassy, and had the visa approved. He then flew all the way there, presumably at great expense, just to be turned around. You don’t think that is unjust? I don’t think it should be America’s job to give foreign governments any information that would cause them to act unfavorably to American citizens abroad, unless the person is currently a wanted criminal.
I have no criminal record, but if I were to Google search my name, I can see mug shots of several people who share my name. What assurances do I have, as someone who may want to travel, that I won’t be erroneously kicked out because my name matches that of some drug dealer or something? Seems a lot less if they can’t plug my name into a database in the first place.
I don’t think in that case it’s a particularly good law, or that the Japanese bureaucracy distinguished itself in any great way, but Japan is a sovereign nation. For example, if they didn’t want tax cheats visiting their country, I’m not inclined to say that the United States ought to undermine Japanese policy on who is allowed in their territory.
Again, I think it is to our advantage to have criminal histories of those who want to enter this country. If we don’t care about misdemeanor convictions, that’s our business. But the quid pro quo is that other countries should get to see our records of criminal histories. Were we to draw a line in the sand and say that we will not share criminal records with other countries, and therefore we will not get the criminal histories of those who intend to come to the United States, I believe it is short-sighted to refuse to enter such agreements.
If a country has a ridiculous policy – like not wanting Americans who have received a parking ticket to enter their country – then we can respond in kind. But I think the general principle is that we’re better off knowing if someone is a violent felon who is trying to enter our country, and then deal with the piddly stuff some other way; rather than refusing to enter a bilateral, fair agreement that could keep bad people out of our country for fear that Americans with petty rap sheets might not be let in somewhere else.
But just because you’re an American doesn’t give you any special right to preferential treatment on entering another country. Other countries get to determine who they want in. It isn’t our country’s job to assure your access to foreign countries.
Take it up with Japan. It is not nor should it be the US’ role to cover up the criminal deeds of its citizens for the purpose of deceiving other nations about their history.
Let me turn the question around a little bit: the US often requires that visa applicants in other countries show that they have sufficient financial interests in their home countries to make a convincing case that they will return home after their visit to the US.
Many, many people in other countries think this policy is horribly unjust. It often means that only the rich can get tourist visas to the United States. Someone of modest means who just wants to visit a family member will usually not get a tourist visa to the U.S. because they would be viewed as a high risk to overstay their visa, to live and work here illegally.
Should other countries help these visa applicants undermine U.S. visa laws and policies in order to help their citizens come to the U.S.? If not, why should the U.S. help Americans evade other countries’ laws about not admitting people who have been convicted of certain crimes, even if we don’t believe those are good laws?
So you don’t think we should be getting information from other nations that we deem important if a person has served their time? We wouldn’t get drug trafficking or terrorism information if the person has served a prison sentence? Sorry, but you’re opinion here is hopelessly naive and misguided.
Convictions are, but the agreements include much more than public records. From my limited knowledge of this subject, I believe that the agreement gives US Immigration access, for instance, to CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre database. The database can include whatever information any police department sees fit to file on any individual, including casual encounters that don’t even involve an arrest, let alone a conviction, and the US no doubt has a similar system available to Canadian Immigration – such agreements are of course always reciprocal.
An example of how this can be used or, most would say, abused would be the cases of several Canadians (I think this happened more than once) being turned back at the US border because at some time in the past – possibly distant past – they had been hospitalized for a suicide attempt. This made the news not long ago because there was great concern about how US Immigration could have had access to their health records, but that doesn’t appear to have had anything to do with it. It seems more likely that the 911 call by someone intervening in the suicide attempt resulted in the dispatch of both ambulance and police, since a report of someone allegedly trying to kill themselves would certainly bear investigation. The police involvement could well have resulted in a CPIC record, nominally just recording the circumstances, but in reality resulting in a lifetime black mark with border agents where these people would be judged “crazy” and “a risk to society”. If anything, information coming out over the years about FBI and NSA surveillance would lead me to suspect there is even more such gray-area non-criminal information on US citizens filed away.
Based on what happened to Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen whom the US security forces clandestinely sent to Syria to be tortured, instead of allowing him to continue home to Canada, the real question is whether Canada should share this type of information with the United States.
[QUOTE=wiki]
Arar was detained during a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunis.[6] He was held without charges in solitary confinement in the United States for nearly two weeks, questioned, and denied meaningful access to a lawyer.[6] The US government suspected him of being a member of Al Qaeda and deported him, not to Canada, his current home and the passport on which he was travelling, but to Syria, even though its government is known to use torture.[7] He was detained in Syria for almost a year, during which time he was tortured, according to the findings of a commission of inquiry ordered by the Canadian government, until his release to Canada. The Syrian government later stated that Arar was “completely innocent.”[8][9]
[/QUOTE]
You know it’s a problem when the Syrian government admits that they made a mistake, but not the US government.
The Japanese government did to an American citizen something which the US considers perfectly normal to do to citizens of other countries. I don’t know if the person who turned the American citizen away at the gate despite having a valid Visa was actually thinking of it in terms of “have a dose of your own medicine”, but maybe since you consider that kind of behavior abhorrent you could take it up with your representatives.
(And add me to “what does this have to do with sharing databases?”)
There is a major difference between the British take on criminal involvement and the USA/Canadian one. The UK seeks information on convictions, the USA/Canadian take is on arrests as well. I remember well the family shock when we applied for US visas in the sixties when my mother was asked about arrests as she had been arrested but not charged for youthful anti-government demonstration. As my father had Top Secret clearance as a missile engineer without British awareness of the arrest, the decision was taken to lie on the NP1 forms and on the clearance for my father to US Top Secret status.
Surely basing civil status on the mere momentary judgement of a LEO is not real respect for civil rights.
:rolleyes:
So bloody what? Its their country and they can do what they like and that includes whom they let enter their country and what information they wish to ask. If your government does not like it, they can, well invade.
Realistically, they US has little power in this case, they can deny sharing the information and the foreign country will simply refuse to let US citizens enter or mire likely refuse to share their own information. Which, considering the US asks from everyone every little detail about them, short of the colour of the underwear their parents were wearing when the conceived you, makes that pretty damn unlikely.
Actually it seems a lot more.
They might have an outstanding notice on a Coastal Maineiac (wanted for international crab smuggling), but with access to precise records they could see, in real time, that they’re really looking for Coastal J. Maieniac the IIIrd of Pennsatucky (49) while they’re currently dealing with Coastal H. Maineiac of Eeny Miney Maine (whatever your age is).
One of the things that I have read (moving on from** Kobal2**'s post) is that one reason that US Passport control is so poorly managed and causes inordinate delays is that the officers in the booth do not have the ability to immdietly search databses if the name on the passport regsiters a hit and have to call people off site. Which leads to hours fuming in a room while the off site location works through that days hits, slowly getting to your name. Elsewhere, officers do have that ability to check right there and then. And s/he sees that(for instance) although there is an Ak .J. 84 on the list, that is a women who is in her 60’s, and as opposed to the thirty year old male standing in front of him.