US-VISIT

I suppose I'd heard about this new initiative, dubbed US-VISIT, whereby foreigners traveling to the United States need to be fingerprinted and photographed upon entry, but I hadn't really grasped the reality of it until I saw it in action at Dulles Airport earlier this afternoon. There's so much that's crazy about airport security these days that I suppose the whole thing must be beyond rational discussion, but this really seems like a terrible policy that's likely to have a very adverse affect on our tourism and also on visitors' impression of the country. And of course at some point I assume more countries will start retaliating with policies designed to hassle Americans.

It's not the biggest deal in the world, but it seems to me to typify the thoughtless and paranoid manner in which we've been making a lot of decisions for the past six years.

Comments

It is quite rich that a liberal (and therefore an ipso facto fascist) is complaining about simple non-intrusive to secure our country against the Islamo-fascists that continue to pose unprecedented existential threats to the republic.

Whine when you are personally affected by these inconveniences which are quite minor in the light of the vast conspiracy by the Muslims to take over our homeland.

Posted by gregor | December 2, 2007 5:00 PM

This is completely absurd---and a perfect example of liberal hate-America-always bias!

Everyone knows that East Germany followed much the same policy, but nonetheless remained one of the world's most popular tourist destinations...

Posted by RKU | December 2, 2007 5:01 PM

It is quite rich that a liberal (and therefore an ipso facto fascist) is complaining about simple non-intrusive to secure our country against the Islamo-fascists that continue to pose unprecedented existential threats to the republic.

Ayyyyy....

1. You're missing a noun, I think.
2. To call the threat of terrorism existential or unprecedented is truly ignorant. Terrorists possess nothing like the destructive threat that we faced in World War II, the Cold War, or from environmental catastrophe. As a matter of fact, the physical threat of terrorism for the average American is close to zero, and the threat to our territorial integrity or national security is, in fact, zero.
3. Might I point out that, like many of the methods used to combat terrorism, this plan would have done little to nothing to stop the September 11th attacks from happening.

Posted by Freddie | December 2, 2007 5:06 PM

Put it in this context: we foreigners don't have any rights under modern US law, but we are subject to it. FISA explicitly allows wiretapping our communications without any oversight; the US Supreme Court has judged it legal for US agencies to kidnap us and render us to other countries; and I could go on. Our only protections are the usually feeble pressures exerted by our native countries (meaning that someone from Great Britain will spend less time in Guantanamo than someone from Yemen) and, more effectively, to just stay under the radar.

And now they want my fingerprints? They must be bloody joking. Such things cannot be taken lightly at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times. I've been to the US often enough, but I won't ever go there again, not if it means being treated and filed like a common criminal.

Posted by Hans B | December 2, 2007 5:11 PM

Hmmm. I guess that's how they know that there are 12 million people in this country illegally -- they fingerprint and photograph them as they wade across the Rio Grande.

A cynical person might think that Homeland Security exists not to deal with terrorists from the Middle East -- but rather to use the threat of such terrorists to identify, create dossiers on, and tightly control the rest of us.

An even more cynical person might think that the entity being created by Dick Cheney, Antonio Gonzales, and George Bush will ultimately be a far greater threat to the people of this country than Al Qaeda could ever hope to be.

Dealing with raggedass terrorists in a realistic way doesn't pay very well -- but surveillance of Americans seems to be a new multi-billion dollar growth industry for our defense contractors.

Posted by Don Williams | December 2, 2007 5:20 PM

I hope there is a drop-off in U.S. tourism from Europe (and also in transit traffic through the U.S. -- the U.S. alone among major countries requires transit passengers to go through Immigration and Customs). Maybe the power of Disney and the state of Florida will get this stupidity reversed.

And yes, some retaliation against American visitors to Europe (with no exceptions for Members of Congress or DHS officials) would be in order. ("Ah, you're an American? Please step over here and wait in this line for an hour or so for your mugshot and fingerprints.")

Posted by Don K | December 2, 2007 5:24 PM

"Whine when you are personally affected by these inconveniences which are quite minor in the light of the vast conspiracy by the Muslims to take over our homeland."

Japan just started doing this last week in Japan for the same reason - "to prevent foreign terrorism." As an American living here, I can tell you it's demeaning to be treated like a criminal. Society will follow the cues from government and vice versa, so if one starts treating you like a criminal, the other will begin to do so also.

I've told people not to come to Japan, or if they do to bring a letter of protest and give it to the immigration people.

Posted by Jeremy | December 2, 2007 5:28 PM

I hope there is a drop-off in U.S. tourism from Europe

Anecdotally, a number of tech conference organisers have found it more useful to organise European events, because potential keynote speakers won't travel -- even though they could return laden with technogoodies. Brazil introduced reciprocal measures a while ago, and Japan used the US example to introduce its own nasty little system recently.

What annoys me is the half-arsed way it's implemented on the outbound side, because it's frankly easy for outgoing travellers to either miss the booth or face missing their outbound flight on a tight layover. One would think that surrendering the I-94 would suffice, but that's based on the assumption that the American immigration bureaucracy is functional.

Oh, and when the British international development minister gets stopped twice for questioning -- in essence for flying while brown -- you know how it's working in practice.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | December 2, 2007 5:33 PM

Don, there's already a de facto retaliation in place, courtesy of our own government.

Every time my dad, my brother or myself fly thru Munich or Frankfurt, the pretty and nice Lufthansa ladies cordon us off to allow us to get home. It really makes you wish you weren't flying back to the US at all.

Posted by Greg | December 2, 2007 5:35 PM

The purpose seems to be to feed the gigantic database. The bureaucracy must be served. The biggest bureaucracy in the world will soon not be the Department of Defense but the Department of Homeland Security.

Posted by rapier | December 2, 2007 5:36 PM

And gregor, you've got to be fucking joking. I live in NY, my parents live a block from the WTC. Thankfully my mom had no meetings with Cantor Fitzgerald that week. Needless to say, we've lost friends both from the NY attacks and from the operations in the Middle East.

At the same time, my entire family thinks the current policy is utter, total Bullshit, with a capital B that rhymes with our fearless leader.

Posted by Greg | December 2, 2007 5:42 PM

Alright, a contrary view: I've heard horror stories about surly US customs people. US immigration and travel policies in general are pretty fucked up, and are having an adverse effect on both tourism and commerce. I think everybody would agree that rectifying things in this area must be a top priority of the next (please God, Democratic) administration -- part and parcel with repairing America's international image and reclaiming our soft power. I also think it goes without saying that such abhorrent, extra-constitutional practices as extraordinary rendition, torture, and suspension of habeas corpus must be stopped.

But the subject at hand is a different matter. It seems to me that as long as the fingerprinting/photographing is done by nice, smiling, efficient bureaucrats, and as long a way can be found to do it without serious delays at the airport, it shouldn't generate a big fuss, especially, if, as I predict, other nations follow suit. Japan already has. It just seems like common sense. Yeah, it sucks that international travel won't be as free and easy any time soon as it was pre-2001. But these types of things seem to me like prudent, reasonable measures (unlike some of the aforementioned dark arts out of Dick Cheney's playbook). We know terrorists depend on air travel just like other folks. Why not utilize airports to make sure our borders are as secure as possible? One ought not to feel like one is being treated like a criminal as long as everybody is subjected to the fingerprinting and photographing.

Again, I predict more nations will follow suit. I predict ways will be found to minimize delays (including, presumably, making sure adequate staff are in place). And I predict sooner or later these more robust border security techniques will save American lives.

Posted by Jasper | December 2, 2007 6:31 PM

We know terrorists depend on air travel just like other folks. Why not utilize airports to make sure our borders are as secure as possible?

Describe for me, exactly, how this helps defend us from terrorism. Or do you imagine we have some huge database of terrorist fingerprints at our disposal? This program would not have prevented September 11th, and I haven't heard a coherent explanation as to what threat it will prevent in the future.

Posted by Freddie | December 2, 2007 7:07 PM

Jasper, for one, welcomes our new police-state overlords. It's all okay, as long as everyone is being treated like a criminal and everyone has their fingerprints fed into the giant database so that they can all run the risk of wonderful experiences like Brandon Mayfield's.

Posted by KCinDC | December 2, 2007 7:18 PM

Is gregor a real person? His comment seems like a caricature of right-wing hyperbole.

It's hard to take anyone seriously who thinks that fascism and authoritarianism are synonyms and doesn't realize that while leftists can certainly be authoritarian (though a more difficult case to make with regard to liberals), leftism and fascism are, by definition, in opposition.

Fascism is a technical word with a specific political meaning.

For that matter, Islamic fundamentalist authoritarianism is neither leftist nor fascist and anyone who uses the expression islamofascist is ostentatiously displaying their ignorance.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | December 2, 2007 7:29 PM

Dude, gregor is not real. Surely. "Ipso facto fascist" made my day, though.

Posted by Lucy | December 2, 2007 7:43 PM

Once again, we discover that in today's America it's become increasingly difficult to distinguish satire---e.g. (I assume) "Gregor"---from seriously advocated policy.

If I'm wrong, and Gregor wasn't joking...that makes my point even more.

From what I've read, Stalinist Russia had much the same problem, one difference being that anyone who snickered too loudly was simply shot...

Posted by RKU | December 2, 2007 8:00 PM

here's more, it's actually much worse than Matt thinks, it is a big deal

Posted by novakant | December 2, 2007 8:04 PM

Think.

Would this have prevented 9/11?

No.

Posted by Joel | December 2, 2007 8:04 PM

America disgraces itself by so grotesquely exaggerating the Islamic "threat." Reality check: the Towel Heads are NOT going to Conquer the World and haul us off to the ovens.

Posted by Peter | December 2, 2007 8:12 PM

The retaliation has already started. I'm planning a trip to Brazil, so I looked up visa requirements on the relevant US gov website. Not only does Brazil require a visa, but they also have started photographing and fingerprinting US visitors specifically, and the website made it very clear that this was a response to the US VISIT program. Yet another black eye to our reputation in the world....

Posted by beckya57 | December 2, 2007 8:17 PM

I know that friends and colleagues in Europe and Australia are increasingly reluctant to come to or even pass through the US while all this nonsense goes on. (It's dangerous, but it's also nonsense. Something can be both profoundly silly and a real threat.) And it's not just individuals - they report that their employers see the complications as having a real monetary cost, in terms of the time it takes to be informed at the managerial level, to inform employees doing the traveling, and to be prepared in case the US system goes berserk on one of those employees. That's all time and effort and money the business could use on something else simply by holding meetings elsewhere.

Posted by Bruce Baugh | December 2, 2007 8:28 PM

Re: I've been to the US often enough, but I won't ever go there again, not if it means being treated and filed like a common criminal.

I work for a major US financial corpration. To qualify for my job I had to be finger-printed, drug tested and undergo an extensive background check. So the above sort of whining really doesn't get much sympathy from me. And I do believe that a number of European airports habe some stringent security measures in place strict enough to make our TSA look like extras from an old Three Stooges short.

Re: I know that friends and colleagues in Europe and Australia are increasingly reluctant to come to or even pass through the US while all this nonsense goes on.

May I ask why? It sounds to me like their are a lot of really paranoid people out there. What's the big deal? As I noted above I had all this sort of treatment and more for my job (indeed, no one is proposing drug-testing tourists yet!) As travel hassles go I would put it rather far down the list.

Posted by JonF | December 2, 2007 9:02 PM

That's an interesting standard, JonF. Do you think it would be okay if we also required all foreign visitors to submit us a resume and undergo a lengthy interview? I presume you had to do that before qualifying for your job.

Posted by Blorp | December 2, 2007 9:50 PM

And yes, some retaliation against American visitors to Europe (with no exceptions for Members of Congress or DHS officials) would be in order. ("Ah, you're an American? Please step over here and wait in this line for an hour or so for your mugshot and fingerprints.")

Well, based on subsequent comments, I guess it's already happening, but my immediate thought was that everyone knows that our homegrown violent crazies, religious fanatics, etc., don't have passports as a general rule.

Posted by latts | December 2, 2007 9:58 PM

JonF,

There's one crucial difference. While Europeans and Japanese think of the civil service as an honorable profession, the TSA is "staffed" by dropouts, GEDs, and the bottom barrel of high school grads. Moreover, the US in general is considerably more paranoid than these countries. Hence the same procedure in Frankfurt is likely to take twice or three or four times as long as at JFK, while our valiant but incompetent TSA is also likely to go about the procedure with a lot more heavy handedness

Posted by Greg | December 2, 2007 10:08 PM

Jon F: May I ask why? Sure. It's about the assessment of costs and opportunities. There aren't, yet, many people suffering as Maher Arar did. But it can happen without evident justification at all, and if it does, it begins a long and expensive process for those who care about the victim. A company that values its employees needs to think about what it would do if someone ran afoul of what is (after all) the declared policy of the US, that those marked as enemies of the right sort simply don't have rights.

There are also, however, calculations without any hypothetical aspect at all. The last-minute denial of visas is up, and therefore the need for standby speakers, consultants, etc., is up. The rate of confiscations of legitimate goods during inspections is up (which in turn is driving up insurance for travelers; this has been in the business press in recent years). Essentially every step of the process has become longer, more capricious, and less amenable to appeal or review. No one incident or even category of incident short of abduction would be decisive by itself, but the cumulative burden is very much significant. Travel to the US has become more costly and more time-consuming, and more erratic on both fronts. That's bad business.

It's particularly bad business in an era of easy access to alternatives. A friend of mine in the business press in London says that as the old-timers tell it, they put up with Warsaw Pact restrictions on travel because there was no real alternative. If you wanted some kinds of business, you went where it was. There's a lot of business traditionally done in the US that doesn't at all have to be done here, and doesn't have to be done with face-to-face meetings if it does. American officials often talk and act as if they think they're owed a cut of the world's business, and also owed special considerations because we had a major terrorist incident six years ago and then got into a war. But nobody owes us anything but the completion of prior agreements (and sometimes not even that). As long as the agencies that deal with business and personal travel keep treating others as petitioners and nuisances rather than customers and guests to be welcomed, my friends and millions like them will prefer to keep away.

Posted by Bruce Baugh | December 2, 2007 10:23 PM

I'd also add that the fact that so many of us in the US have been subjected to errant nonsense, usually justified by the War on Some Drugs, shouldn't be license to haze others. It should be impetus to want to roll back the whole mess.

Posted by Bruce Baugh | December 2, 2007 10:29 PM

Matt: this is another chance to plug your buddy Fallows. He had the same story a week earlier, but in Japan.
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/not_so_thankful_for_this_at_th.php

Posted by dan k | December 2, 2007 11:10 PM

"I work for a major US financial corpration. To qualify for my job I had to be finger-printed, drug tested and undergo an extensive background check."

We don't care.

Also, presumably the tourists visiting this country are TOURISTS, not people seeking employment with the federal government.

Posted by Vidor | December 3, 2007 12:21 AM

The thing is, these new policies *will* have an impact on Americans.

Until earlier this year, Canadians entering the US did not need a passport (Canadians have largely been exempt from many of the restrictive polices, including fingerprinting and photographing). Now, we require one when flying into the US. The plan to require passports for all entries is scheduled to come on line in 2008. But this means the Americans, too, will need passports.

Naturally, many will be unaffected by this - since they don't travel. I grew up in Windsor, on the border with Detroit, the most valuable border crossing (at least in terms of the value of goods going back and forth daily). It was common to cross the border for any reason (we used to go over at 2 a.m. when the bars closed to eat Mexican food). Right now, with the rise to parity of the Canadian dollar, Canadians are streaming over the border to shop. You start requiring passports, and nobody - Canadian or American - is going to cross the border except when absolutely necessary.

Posted by McKingford | December 3, 2007 1:00 AM

Most comments seem to abhor the treatment rather than the information.

If the information could be had cost-free -- in terms of hassle, humiliation and delay -- is there still a problem?

I'm not so sure. The trend in society is toward more self-awareness vis-a-vis the interactive-patterns of constituent parts anyway. If we can obtain useful information on visitors without negatively affecting their "value" as a Set -- i.e. without lowering absolute numbers, without, in general, creating negative downstream consequences -- then society as a whole benefits.

A rebuttal is most likely on the tip of your tongue. Have at it. But keep in mind that the function of a semi-permeable boundary -- one of the absolute necessities of a living system* -- is to discern between good and bad. And in this age, that boundary is and must be virtually maintained.

* See J.G. Miller, Living Systems.

Posted by JA | December 3, 2007 1:03 AM

I hope there is a drop-off in U.S. tourism from Europe ....and yes, some retaliation against American visitors to Europe (with no exceptions for Members of Congress or DHS officials) would be in order. Posted by Don K

But don't dare question Don K's patriotism when he hopes the US suffers retaliation, because he is just a dissenter.

IMO, US*VISIT is a stupid program. Hatched simultaneously with Bush serving both Teddy Kennedy and his own corporate masters - with Open Borders and no effort to inquire about who the 12 million illegals already here are, other than how to best put those "hard-working, good-hearted people" on a path to citizenship.

Ideally, we should have a program where every legal immigrant coming here on things like family reuinification, birthright citizen is vetted to see if they are a national security threat to us - and a program where we track every visitor to see if they leave before their Visa expires. We don't have either.

I support such tracking. Along with increased scrutiny of not just countries with a radical Muslim problem local authorities have lost control of, but countries with heavy spy efforts in the US (China, Israel, Russia), and countries that allow lifetime sex offenders to travel abroad but who refuse to alert the USA authorities about their sex offense history(Mexico, KSA, Nigeria)

But until we are serious about the larger invasion Bush&Co welcomes, it is stupid to fingerprint what we know are 99.99% legitimate Brazilians, Brits. Match 'em to their passports, take a picture, interview suspicious ones, track that they left rather than stay on like Moussaoui and Atta. Track down and deport without trial those who illegally overstay their Visa.

Posted by Chris Ford | December 3, 2007 1:14 AM

There are two stages of photographing and fingerprinting, one is done while leaving, the other done while entering. A brief description of the one done while leaving will convince you of the utter futility of the system:

Near the gate (not security or anywhere people are used to seeing id-check measures in use, but near the bloody gate at which point most people assume that they just have to get on the bloody plane), there's an innocuous ATM looking machine (really just like an ATM) sometimes with a DHS employee next to it, with a sign on the machine saying that foreigners must check in at the machine. Now if you had to pass the machine like a turnstile to get in to the waiting area that would be one thing. But to have an ATM like thing that most people would miss, and making it look like an optional step that people can afford to skip looks like a terrible idea already. This ATM style machine then leads you through the steps of scanning your visa, photographing you and fingerprinting you at the end of which you get a printout with squiggly lines on it, presumably to be read by another computer. That's it.

Nobody ever asks you for this receipt as proof that you've "checked out" of the US. On re-entry the immigration people don't ask to see the receipt that you got when you left. Indeed when I returned, I offered it to the immigration guy who told me he had no idea what to do with it. I now have a collection of 4 or 5 of these receipts, and I'm quite sure nobody cares that I have them or went through the process.

The last time I left the country, I did not even see any of these ATMs near my gate. Either I missed them altogether, or DHS hasn't equipped every airport similarly or they've started scrapping a useless system already.

Posted by bhagavathy | December 3, 2007 1:28 AM

One ought not to feel like one is being treated like a criminal as long as everybody is subjected to the fingerprinting and photographing

I'm guessing that Matt got a few minutes of pointed, polite questioning from security screeners at the gate at Schiphol on the way back to the US. The people who do that sometimes get criticised for being too damn pointed, but they're good at their job.

Near the gate (not security or anywhere people are used to seeing id-check measures in use, but near the bloody gate at which point most people assume that they just have to get on the bloody plane), there's an innocuous ATM looking machine (really just like an ATM) sometimes with a DHS employee next to it

At Detroit Metro, a main hub for NWA from Europe, the outgoing ATM-looking machines are in the concourse. And yes, no-one knows what the receipts are for. You'd assume that the checkout procedure would come with the other bit, where your I-94 gets taken out of your passport, but no.

Match 'em to their passports, take a picture, interview suspicious ones, track that they left rather than stay on like Moussaoui and Atta. Track down and deport without trial those who illegally overstay their Visa.

Please demand that such things are costed properly and converted into federal budgetary items, and show your willingness to pay your part of it. Oh, and please state your approval of a US citizen ID database that's at least as comprehensive.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | December 3, 2007 2:05 AM

McKingford - The plan to require passports for all entries is scheduled to come on line in 2008. But this means the Americans, too, will need passports.
Naturally, many will be unaffected by this - since they don't travel. I grew up in Windsor, on the border with Detroit, the most valuable border crossing (at least in terms of the value of goods going back and forth daily). It was common to cross the border for any reason (we used to go over at 2 a.m. when the bars closed to eat Mexican food).

I too will mourn the loss of the open, friendly Border with Canada, but that happy period of the past (I too loved the casual border crossing situation) was slowly being lost long before Bush - by breakdown in security and immigration consensus about which countries were major mass immigration problems (Canada was open arms to Muslim "refugees" beginning in the 80s), the sadly futile "war on drugs", Canadians hissy about firearms and "fashionably anti-American" under Liberals and Labour - causing breakdown between Canadian and US authorities. Resulting in the end to maintaining the "friendliest, longest, unguarded border between nations".

We really lost something good and highly significant when we lost that powerful symbol to the world of just how well sympatico nations could get along.

I'd love to see us regain that with Canada.

It will require ending mass immigration and getting a grip on both country's current internal threats that now focus on cross border targets. It will require us both, but Canada in particular to end it's nation-bashing.

And if we do get to that point, and wish to end families having to spend 500 bucks on passports just to cross the border because their drivers licenses which cost 80 bucks to get are worthless as secure ID?

We need to upgrade our ID like the EU, Brazil, China, Japan have done so a friggin' passport is not the only "reliable" ID available to Americans. If Lefties and libertarians have a problem with that, then they should be able to opt for less secure ID that addresses their privacy concerns then be subject to extra scrutiny at airports those with better ID can avoid, and of course be required to stay with the passport ID if they travel anywhere.

Posted by Chris Ford | December 3, 2007 2:05 AM

But if we don't fingerprint them, how will we recognize their fingers when we pick them up after the car bomb goes off?

Posted by brooksfoe | December 3, 2007 3:11 AM

Chris Ford: are you by any chance an alcoholic?

Posted by hello | December 3, 2007 3:49 AM

It seems to me that US-VISIT is a flawed but reasonable attempt to improve border security. Everyone who needs a visa to travel to the U.S. is fingerprinted at an Embassy or Consulate abroad. What's wrong with scanning that person's prints again at the border to verify that the person standing before the immigration official is, in fact, the same person who applied for the visa? And why not check the government's fingerprint records for criminal convictions, arrest warrants, etc.? Such a process, implemented properly, should be quick and relatively painless.

Posted by EF | December 3, 2007 3:49 AM

Chris Fraud, is way past being hideous slime. Chris Fraud is the most hideous of all monsters.

Posted by Jennifer | December 3, 2007 6:25 AM

Re: While Europeans and Japanese think of the civil service as an honorable profession, the TSA is "staffed" by dropouts, GEDs, and the bottom barrel of high school grads.

I travel a lot, though mainly within the US. I have never had any trouble with the TSA folks, and they always act in a professonal and courteous manner. I think you are spreading unjustified calumnies here.

Re: We need to upgrade our ID like the EU, Brazil, China, Japan have done so a friggin' passport is not the only "reliable" ID available to Americans

How so? Most drivers licenses are now very tamper-proof. I couldn't imagine how to fake mine. Not saying it xan't be done, but you're going to need some very fancy equipment andi t's going to cost a lot.

Posted by JonF | December 3, 2007 6:37 AM

EF: Said like a true american. I wish you could see this matter from the other side to see how pointless this initiative is. There are NO imigrants coming to your country to steal your democracy or to rob your country. I've lived in US for a year and thanks to people with opinions similar to yours I'm never going there again unless there is a change in america's view of the rest of the world.

Posted by jolan | December 3, 2007 9:15 AM

Coming to America poses problems for foreigners, with or without a towel. Since 2002 we have had to arrange most meetings in Europe because important clients simply refuse to come here. In addition to the paperwork (not as bad as some places) there is the ättitude". It seems our officers manning the entry points are a pretty boorish lot. We have also seen a steady transfer of contract work out of the US to Dubai/Emirates and Singapore. Those are places we can fly to direct from New York on Emirates and Singapore Airlines (the service on board is a holiday treat). I guess Americans don't care about this.

Posted by Alan | December 3, 2007 9:20 AM

JonF, I'm an American who has been traveling all of his life. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been friendly to TSA people and they have treated me like crap.

"I work for a major US financial corpration. To qualify for my job I had to be finger-printed, drug tested and undergo an extensive background check. So the above sort of whining really doesn't get much sympathy from me. And I do believe that a number of European airports habe some stringent security measures in place strict enough to make our TSA look like extras from an old Three Stooges short."

Ironically, I know of a kid (he had to get fingerprinted for an internship using the same computerized fingerprinting machine that I used for another internship application) who ended up, by a cop's negligence, having an FBI criminal record accidentally created on him by that process. He was applying to Goldman Sachs or something and they needed fingerprints, so he went to our local police station to have it done. Since it was connected to the web, anyone who was fingerprinted on it could see the cops instantly send their info to the FBI to check for priors and warrants. If you had no record but the cop hit "send," then an empty record was created for you in your name at Langley. To get the internship, you couldn't have an FBI record. Unfortunately, the cop accidentally hit "send" and made the kid a record. It took months to clean up the mess.

Posted by Reality Man | December 3, 2007 9:29 AM

Ironically, we've become less intrusive about entering the country than the Chinese government. The most intrusive thing I had to do was sign a form that said I don't have AIDS or leprosy. You don't have to have a medical exam unless you apply to live and work in China for a little while and a lot of the time they just waive that, so there's no real way for them to know if you just lied (unless your finger comes off when you hand them the form).

Another weird tidbit in all of this is that Japan has suffered only one major terrorist attack in the past 15 years, the subway gas attack. About three to eight people died and 200 got sick. However, this wouldn't have prevented the attack because the terrorists were all Japanese and some of them were rather successful (one was a doctor, etc.).

Posted by Reality Man | December 3, 2007 9:36 AM

"I can count on one hand the number of times I've been friendly to TSA people and they have treated me like crap."

That wasn't really coherent. Let me try that again:

"I can count on one hand the number of times I've been friendly to TSA people and they haven't treated me like crap."

Posted by Reality Man | December 3, 2007 9:38 AM

Still not clear, RM. Is that

( I can count on one hand the number of times I've been friendly to TSA people ) and they haven't treated me like crap.

(that is, they treat you well even though you're not friendly to them) or

I can count on one hand the number of times ( I've been friendly to TSA people and they haven't treated me like crap ).

(that is, the combination of your being friendly to them and their treating you well is rare, though we're not sure which part is the limiting factor)?

Maybe forget the issue of how you treat them, and just let us know whether you like or hate the TSA folks.

Posted by KCinDC | December 3, 2007 10:36 AM

I'm on program committees for international conferences, and this is a big deal. At the last workshop I was at, three talks had to be presented by someone who didn't know the material, because the authors couldn't get visas in time. There's increasing pressure to move technical conferences out of the United States because our international colleagues are tired of the hassle.

My old advisor had to scramble after three of his students, who were Chinese citizens, weren't allowed back in the country after presenting at a conference in France. They were told that they had to get new visas, that the backlog was three months, but they only had a one-month French visa to attend the conference. Fortunately UC Berkeley got their attorneys on it, and got Barbara Boxer to intervene and kick butt, and the students were allowed back just in time. But these were world-class researchers being treated this way. Their younger colleagues will be more likely to try to get into European or Canadian universities. If we don't stop messing with visitors, we're not going to get any. And since Americans can't be bothered with math or science, if Chinese and Indians stop coming, the basis of our economy is in danger.

Posted by Joe Buck | December 3, 2007 12:17 PM

I think a good book could be written about this combination of policies called "The Path to National Suicide"...but unfortunately that title was already taken by some crazy anti-immigrationist...

Posted by RKU | December 3, 2007 12:23 PM

1. Hey Chris Ford, Canada doesn't have a "Labour" party. Maybe you meant NDP?

2. I recently discovered first-hand that Russia requires US citizens to show proof that they passed an HIV blood test in order to qualify for a visa. Well, at least now I can show my future wife that I'm clean!

Posted by nbt | December 3, 2007 7:22 PM

My old advisor had to scramble after three of his students, who were Chinese citizens, weren't allowed back in the country after presenting at a conference in France. They were told that they had to get new visas, that the backlog was three months, but they only had a one-month French visa to attend the conference. Fortunately UC Berkeley got their attorneys on it, and got Barbara Boxer to intervene and kick butt, and the students were allowed back just in time. But these were world-class researchers being treated this way.

I agree that the situation described in the above anecdote is scandalous, and is hurting the country. I agree we desperately need a new administration that will reform America's broken and counterproductive visa procedures and insist upon efficient and polite service at US ports of entry (in addition to the 99 million other Bush administration policies it will need to change).

But, what does this any of this have to do with biometric scanning and database procedures? It seems to me such activities are wisely -- for a change -- actually making use of one of America's strengths, technology. Again, if it can be done quickly, efficiently, unobtrusively and courteously, I still don't see what the big deal is. Are people claiming that fingerprints, facial images or other biometric data aren't highly useful to security personnel? Heck, maybe they aren't for all I know, but this sure seems rather counterintuitive.

Anyway, as long as we get a better handle on our ports of entry, and significantly bolster the efficiency and courteousness with which international travelers are treated upon arrival in the US, I predict the brouhaha will blow over, because governments of other rich countries will likewise be employing such tactics. They will increasingly become part of a standard set of procedures everybody deals with when traveling to a country that can afford the technology.

Posted by Jasper | December 3, 2007 7:43 PM

I'm spending a year in Budapest on a sabbatical, and I can say that wherever I've gone this year - Scotland, England, Holland, Germany, Poland, and Hungary - this subject almost immediately comes up.

I met a well known Hungarian jazz musician on a train two weeks ago who told me that the first time he came to the US back in the 90's, he had tears in his eyes when he got off the plane. The last time he went, he was treated like a member of al Qaeda because he had once travelled to Libya to perform. He told me he would never return to the US until we changed our policy toward visitors.

As an engineering professor, I can also attest to the fact that many foreign students as well as professors are very reluctant to come to the US, for conferences, or any other reason. The trouble is, now that these policies are in place, who will have the guts to change them back? Hillary? I think not...

Posted by Buckeye | December 4, 2007 2:48 AM

Jonf writes: "I work for a major US financial corpration. To qualify for my job I had to be finger-printed, drug tested and undergo an extensive background check. So the above sort of whining really doesn't get much sympathy from me."

Some people just enjoy bending over for their bosses, apparently, and see no problem with carrying that attitude over to the rest of reality.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | December 4, 2007 12:08 PM