US fingerprint & photograph all foreign visitors except those on visa waiver

"Simon Elliott" wrote in message
...
PTRAVEL writes
1/ Fingerprints are quite easily changed. Retina scanning equipment is
coming rapidly down in price and would be much harder to fool.

I'm not sure that fingerprints are so easily changed. However, a
significant factor in the US is that fingerprint identification is
accepted
as proof of identity as a matter of law in US courts. Retinal scans, as
far
as I'm aware, are not. Though the latter may be more accurate, until it
has
been tested, judicially, enough times, it wouldn't automatically be
considerable admissible evidence.

Is that because the law takes time to adapt to or gain confidence in new
methods? Or is there some doubt over the reliability of retina scans?

It's the former. There's a procedure for getting a court to accept new
forms of scientific evidence (unfortunately, the name of the procedure
escapes at the moment). Only until this procedure has been applied in a
number of courts in a number of jurisdictions, and subsequently tested
(tested as a matter of law) at the appellate level in a significant number
of appellate courts, would it be accepted as absolute proof of identity.
I'm sure it will happen eventually, but right now retinal scanning doesn't
carry the same evidentiary weight as fingerprinting.



I vaguely recall reading that fingerprints are quite easily changed by
surgical procedures. There are certainly ways of fooling less
sophisticated fingerprint readers. FWIW, I've been involved in automated
access control systems for organisations who think that retina scans are
more reliable than fingerprints.

I don't doubt that they are. The problem isn't whether they're actually
better, but whether a court of law would accept them as proof. As I always
tell my clients, there are two truths -- that which actually happened and
that which I can prove in court as a matter of law. The latter is generally
a subset of the former.



2/ Are fingerprints of all that many serious undesirables on record?

In the US, yes. As you indicated, fingerprinting is fairly routine in
the
US and, to a great extent, fingerprint databases have been consolidated.
Of
course, any criminal activity will generate a fingerprint record, e.g.
arrest (with or without subsequent conviction). However, many other
activities will result in a fingerprint record being created: obtaining a
drivers license or state ID in many states, obtaining a professional
license, becoming a naturalized citizen, etc.

This was something I wasn't aware of until your post to rta a few months
ago. But the new immigration systems aren't primarily designed to work
on US nationals. Is the US likely to have on record the fingerprints of
terrorists who are not US nationals?

No, not at all. However, the US has, for some time, had a mechanism set up
for determining identity by fingerprints. Presumably, those who would need
visas will provide fingerprints at some point of the process which would be
verified upon entry and, more importantly, would be compared against any
subsequent prints found at the scene of any crimes, allowing authorities to
identify foreign wrong-doers. I'm not sure how much additional security, if
any, this procedure will provide, but I'm certain that US authorities,
ignorant of European's feelings about being fingerprinted, saw this as a
fairly low-impact security measure.


Could the exit control system be more useful: a non US national commits
a crime in the US, carelessly leaves his fingerprints on something, and
may be stopped when leaving the US.

Exactly, or any attempt to re-enter.


Will US citizens also have to be fingerprinted on entry?

That's a good question. I doubt it, for a number of reasons. First,
adequate authentication procedures for US passports should be sufficient to
make it unnecessary, since the positive-ID process would have been
undertaken when the passport was issued (and please note that I'm speaking
theoretically, here). Second, I'm not sure that there's any constitutional
basis for requiring a US citizen to be fingerprinted before he is allowed
back in the country.

One obvious way
for a terrorist or other undesirable to enter the US is for them to
obtain a US passport. If the fingerprints of many US citizens are on
record, this would be more hazardous.

I agree. I don't know alot about this, but I'd assume that some effort has
been put into making US passports extremely difficult to forge or alter.


3/ Who will be able to access the data? If I were visiting the US to go
backpacking in Yosemite, I wouldn't be all that bothered about this.
But
what about a highly sensitive business trip where I could be covered in
embarrassment (or worse) if anyone found out?

This is an issue that concerns Americans as well as foreign visitors. I
don't care if the FBI has access to my fingerprint information, but I'd
be
more concerned if, for example, insurance companies, credit reporting
agencies, etc., had access to personal government-collected data. In the
US, the right to travel between states is protected by the Constitution.
This protection does not extend to foreign travel by US citizens (at
least
as the Constitution is currently interpretted -- this is why the US
government can prevent US citizens from travelling to Cuba),

Interesting. I've often wondered how that works. Is the jurisdiction of
the US government over its citizens even when outside the US also
explicitly part of the US Constitution?

It's been more than a decade since I studied constitutional law;
unfortunately, I don't recall. However, my guess is that, since the rights
of citizenship do not terminate at the borders of the US, the obligations of
citizenship do not as well


nor does it
apply to foreign visitors coming to the US. Admission to the US (or, for
that matter, any sovereign nation) is at the sufferance of the
government --
permission can be granted or denied. Accordingly, there is no "right" to
enter the US anonymously nor, for that matter, can I think of any other
nation which affords this as a right. I do agree, though, that
safeguarding
entry information from, as in your example, business competitors is in
the
interest of the US government. What company would want to do business
here
if their competitors could find out what they're up to?

The UK government IMHO similarly shot themselves in the foot with their
legislation on encrypted emails.

4/ Will the land borders be covered?

I would assume yes, though our land borders are notoriously porous.

Hard to see what can be done about that, but does seem to cast some
doubt on the usefulness of the new systems.
--
Simon Elliott
http://www.ctsn.co.uk/

Vareck Bostrom wrote:

Because the US is the largest, most powerful democracy.

India is the largest democracy (by population).

India has also had a certain amount of trouble with muslim and
other terrorists.

So? Is Al Queda attacking India? Has OBL mentioned India in his
periodic messages?

Once the word fundamentalist comes into play, you can't expect
that faction to be reasonable. Islamic, or any other ...

Exactly. The Christian fundamentalists in the US south, and in the
White House, are also unreasonable as their domestic and foreign
policy agenda shows.

there are going to be extreme elements both within and outside
of the US that feels that the US government or the US as a whole
is an oppressor.

This is the argument that is typically used to explain-away the legit
argument that the arab world has with the US by saying it's only a
small handfull of arabs that are making the noise. And it works
domestically because Americans are incredibly ignorant of how the
average arab lives or what the average arab thinks about various
issues.

The US also has an extremely large economy and US corporations
and citizens can be found in every country in the world and
that makes the US a very obvious target.

Then why didn't the planes on 9-11 fly into IBM, or Microsoft, or
Boeing, an oil refinery, an auto factory? There are extremely large
corporations in Germany, France, Netherlands, Scandinavia, etc. Again
a popular myth that Al Queada has a real problem with how we live in
the west and how our corporations operate. This myth helps build and
maintain popular support in the US that it's their very way of life
that's at stake. Fear combined with ignorance.

France has also been the target of external terrorist threat
from the same source as the US in the form of Libya.

I'm not familiar with what specific French actions or policies have
led to specific actions against it by Libya.

South Korea and Japan have had citizens kidnapped by the
North Korean government - not just a few either, hundreds
over the years.

An action designed and executed by a gov't and were not designed to
terrorize or harm the general South Korean or Japanese population but
were (stupid or misguided) covert activities with foreign-intelligence
gathering objectives at it's roots. Again, how many Al Queda planes
crashed into buildings in Korea and Japan? How many times has Japan
been the subject of some sort of attack by a foreign group with
radically different ethnic or religeous beliefs?

In some future time, North Korea may well attack the US
because the US helps repel an armed invasion by the DPRK
into the ROK.

More FUD.

Much of the US oil comes from Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela
(in that order, roughly, in 2002 at least),

It doesn't matter where it comes from. It matters if the global
supply can comfortably exceed the global demand. If it can't then
world oil prices rise. That's the beauty of a free market,
free-enterprise system. It's also half the reason why the US has
maintained a political or military presence in the middle east.

which are all stable and friendly supplying states

And Canada should impose an export tarrif on it's oil sold to the US
in retaliation for all the trade crap (softwood lumber for one) that
the Bush admin is pulling.

Oil is efficient and american industrial processes are geared to
it. If the Americans were to seek out an alternate energy source
we would lower the price of oil until that alternate energy
source was not economically viable.

Look people! I'm having a conversation with Dick Cheney!

Was I looking for a PR speech from the Petroleum Marketing Board?

You've just admitted that the US is vulnerable to world oil supply and
prices, and by extension that the US has a dire interest in the
stability of various gov'ts in the middle east and in the free flow of
oil from that region, so much that they stationed thousands of troops
in Saudi Arabia to essentially hold the House of Saud hostage to their
oil needs.

How would the average god-fearing american act if an Islamic foreign
power stationed troops on US soil to insure the stability of an
un-popular regime for the sake of efficient and controlled extraction
of a US natural resource?

American troops are located in many dozens of countries around
the world

Tell me what other country is doing the same.

this is hardly "occupation".

Again how would the US public feel or react to having foreign troops
stationed on US soil.

but Saudi Arabia was not occupied.

You've got to be joking. When a puppet gov't allows thousands of
foreign troops to be stationed on it's soil, what is do you call it?

Americans for years have been invited to Saudi Arabia

Invited. Did you type that word with a straight face?

to help train their "national guard"

To help keep the House of Saud in power.

The Saudis have asked us to leave and we're going.

It got too hot in the kitchen and now you've realized what a mistake
it was to keep those troops in Saudi Arabia and you're hi-tailing it
outa there. You knew it was coming to this after 9-11 so you cooked
up a crock pot reason to "attack" Iraq so you could set up a puppet
gov't there so you can continue to maintain some control of world oil
prices and supply by putting your hand on Iraq's oil supply (second
only to Saudi Arabia). You think this scheme will be self-financing
because Iraq's petro dollars would flow back to the US as a way to pay
for it's reconstruction because of the billions of dollars worth of
cruise missles you lobbed at them in order to cause the dammage in the
first place.

You attempt to use the term "occpy" to imply "control of" which
was not the case in the least in Saudi Arabia.

Save that drivel for the ignorant US population. Those that pay
attention to world politics and world events knows better. My my, hit
a nerve with Saudi Arabia did we?

Only (extremely) ignorant, arrogant non-americans believe that
the US has been the only target of external terrorist threats.

Was the Boston Tea party a terrorist act? Was the US revolt against
the Brittish that led to the war of independance a terrorist act?
Spin spin spin this all you want. Every terrorist group has a legit
beef somewhere deep down as their root cause and those that they
agress against are desperate to keep those reasons from becoming known
to their citizens.

Hussein did not seem to consider the US a friend, even while
asking for US help during the war with Iran. The US never
considered him a friend the way the US would consider the
UK or even France a friend - he was simply the lesser of
two evils in a very bad situation.

Why are you trying to cloud the issue by going down a side-track of
what a friend is? Rumseld went to Iraq and sealed the deal with
Saddam with a handshake in front of the cameras. The Reagan white
house was such a friend to Saddam that they quashed a motion by the
house and senate to condem Saddam's use of chemical weapons. What
else are friends for?

On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 20:45:44 -0700, Clark W. Griswold, Jr. wrote:

"Newby" wrote:

Why are we putting all of this effort into airports and doing little to
protect our northern and southern borders? Does our government honestly
believe that terrorists will only attempt to enter the USA via an airliner?

Obviously not, but you have to start somewhere. By the end of 2005, both borders
will be covered as well.

Borders, I don't think so. Border crossings, yes.

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 01:39:23 GMT "Gregory Morrow"
wrote:

:It's no big deal. This used to happen years ago when adjacent US states had
:different laws for drinking ages, e.g. one state was 21 and the other state
:was 19. IIRC there were sometimes patrols on the Illinois - Wisconsin
:border to stop IL teenagers from going up to WI to drink (now AFAIK the
:uniform US drinking age is 21)....

19 is above curfew age.

I doubt that the police could prevent them from crossing the border.

Perhaps you confused the story with the police waiting to give them DUI's on
the way back?

--
Binyamin Dissen
http://www.dissensoftware.com

"Binyamin Dissen" schreef in bericht
news

19 is above curfew age.

Is there a curfew in the US? Why?

Sjoerd

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 20:46:59 +0100 "Sjoerd" wrote:

:"Binyamin Dissen" schreef in bericht
:news
: 19 is above curfew age.

:Is there a curfew in the US? Why?

No, there is not "US" curfew.

Some states/cities choose to have them.

Why? One reason might be to give law enforcement a tool to attempt to stop
gang activity by giving them a law that can be used to make arrests.

--
Binyamin Dissen
http://www.dissensoftware.com

Binyamin Dissen wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 01:39:23 GMT "Gregory Morrow"
wrote:

:It's no big deal. This used to happen years ago when adjacent US states
had
:different laws for drinking ages, e.g. one state was 21 and the other
state
:was 19. IIRC there were sometimes patrols on the Illinois - Wisconsin
:border to stop IL teenagers from going up to WI to drink (now AFAIK the
:uniform US drinking age is 21)....

19 is above curfew age.

I doubt that the police could prevent them from crossing the border.

Perhaps you confused the story with the police waiting to give them DUI's
on
the way back?


Yep, that's probably it....

--
Best
Greg

Secret Asian Man wrote:
anyway? And if Israel's the problem, why doesn't the UN resolve it? They've
had 50+ years to do so.

Because the USA has consistently vetoed UN efforts to act fairly. The USA
doesn't veto resolutions against palestine, but they veto resolutions against
Israel. As a result, the UN never has a mandate to force israel to (for
instance) stop building the wall outside its territory.

The UN reflects what its members want it to do. And when one powerful member
with VETO makes sure that the UN is ineffective in dealing with an issue, who
do you blame ? the UN as a whole, or that member ?

Now you can continue to bury your head in the sand and hope the problem goes
away. Lots of people are like that, which is understandable.

There is no debate that america is hated by many. But using military force
only makes the problem worse, and using such force against the UN also
destroys ties with allies and osilates the USA.

But more importantly, the USA has reacted in a way that makes more people hate
the USA, and the more people hate the USA, the more out of that buch will hate
it enough to become active terrorists. It is like spearding weed feeder on
your lawn instead of putting weed killer.

the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz axis of evil represents everything the world
hates about the USA. Imperialistic, "we are the best", "don't tell us what to
do", "we are so strong we can do as we wish", "we rule the world" attitudes.

When will americans realise that their current regime is actually making
things WORSE ? Look at how civil liberties have degraded since 9-11, look at
the number of steps the Bush Regime has undertaken to further control/monitor
what people do in the USA. If they are not stopped, where will it stop ?

I'd feel safer traveling to Russia than to the USA today. In the past, it was
the USSR that had all the security measures and spies following visitors etc.
The Bush Regime is turning the USA into what the USSR used to be. And
americans aren't opposing this, they seem to support this.

Secret Asian Man wrote:

"nobody" wrote in message
...
Secret Asian Man wrote:
Because the US is the largest, most powerful democracy.

With a selected president, a dead opposition that has not opposed a
rogue
government, I would not call it a healthy democracy.

Arabas doN't despise the USA because their are a democracy or because of
the
lifestyle inside the USA. They despise the USA because the USA is
mingling
in
their affairs, always taking the side of Israel, defending Israel at the
UN by

Do you have the slightest idea how childish you sound? "They always take
Israel's side! Wahh! Mommy!" Who was it that set up your hated Israel,
anyway? And if Israel's the problem, why doesn't the UN resolve it?
They've
had 50+ years to do so.

using its veto, and expecting to tell all countries how to conduct
themselves.

You mean like other countries telling the US how to conduct themselves?
All
countries do this. That's called diplomacy.

This discussion is about terrorists, which you turned into a long-winded
rant about your petty hates.


That's because you are dealing with notorious JF Mezei troll. He's the
biggest Jew, Israel, and US - hater on Usenet by far. He's been babbling
the same old tired tune for many years now. Suggest you killfile him, as he
simply doesn't listen but merrily plows on ahead with his utter nonsense....

--
Best
Greg

Vareck Bostrom wrote:

In article , nobody
wrote:

Vareck Bostrom wrote:
India has also had a certain amount of trouble with muslim and other
terrorists. India has been targeted by external terrorists and deal
with
an external threat in the form of the relationship with Pakistan over
Kashmir.

And the USA has trouble with domestic terrorists such as the guy who
blew up
the building, the sniper and kid who killed many in the washington area,
the
many school mass murders, the california car "I'll shoot you because I
don't
like your face" murders etc. And you don't have to go back that far in
USA
history to look at the racial problems which would not be too different
from
muslim vs boudhist problems of india, or the republican versus british
conflicts in Northern Ireland.

Yes..


DANGER! DANGER! The infamous JF Mezei troll (hiding at his nobody@nobody
sock) is running amok on rta again! The unemployed living - with - mommy
French - Canadien is obviously bored as he is trolling his net W - I - D - E
with his "I hate Amerika - Jews - Israel" schtick....

I suggest we take up a collection and send him to sunny Zimbabwe where his
hero Robert Mugabe can keep him as a "pet"...!!!

--
Best
Greg