Post by boomerchick on Jan 7, 2004 19:37:21 GMT -5
At American Borders: Smile; You're on File
By Pascal Riche
Liberation
Tuesday 06 January 2004
Since yesterday, the majority of foreigners who land at American airports are entered into police files. They stand in front of a round digital camera that takes their picture; they put one index finger, then the other, on an orange glass shelf, and their fingerprints are taken electronically. The intelligence collected is immediately compared to the FBI’s terrorist suspects’ list: in a few seconds, the computer clears the visitor or identifies a suspect. In the second case, the person is interrogated by the FBI in an airport room. In this first stage at least, nationals of twenty-eight countries, including France, are exempt from these controls.
This new procedure, baptized US-Visit (for United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology), had been decided upon by Congress two years ago, while the feelings created by the September 11, 2001 attacks were still running high. After an initial investment of $380 million and a test period in the Atlanta airport, the program was launched yesterday on a wide scale for those arriving at 115 airports and 14 ports. It will soon be put in place at 50 Mexican and Canadian border crossing posts. Over a full year, 24 million visitors with visas will have to submit to these controls. At the end of 2004, visitors will also have to signal their departure from American territory: they will have to scan their prints at electronic boundaries again.
Mistakes
Yesterday morning at the Atlanta airport, Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, “proudly” presented the launch of a program that will, he said, help to “keep our borders open to visitors and closed to terrorists.” He specified that fingerprinting would be fast and “without ink”, as though that were the principal subject preoccupying freedoms’ defenders. He went on to assure that the information collected would be protected by American privacy law and that only Federal agents would have access to it.
During the several weeks of testing in Atlanta, 20,000 people were controlled. According to Tom Ridge, the computer picked out 21 of those, who were wanted by Federal authorities for “drug trafficking, rape, or violation of immigration law.” However, public freedoms’ defenders and immigration specialists worry: “The problem is the reliability of the information contained in the Federal data base. Lots of people are in there by mistake, and, once they’re there, it’s very difficult to get them out. Since September 11, the FBI can put anyone in there as seems best to them. I would not be surprised if people are unjustly sent back at the border,” comments Crystal Williams, spokesperson for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, in Washington. Moreover, the program’s effectiveness in the anti-terrorist struggle is questioned by certain experts. The new system will certainly permit deterrence of known criminals from entering the United States, but, as M.J. Gohel, a security expert at the London Asia-Pacific Foundation, emphasized yesterday on CNN, “terrorists are often young men of good family, with an education and no police record”…
The new system has at least one merit: it has allowed a partial elimination of the humiliating procedure put in place by the Justice Department after September 11 which required nationals from twenty-five “at risk” (i.e. Muslim) countries to come and register themselves every year with the Federal authorities.
Reciprocity
The sharpest reaction to US-Visit came from Brazil. This country does not appreciate the treatment America accords its nationals one bit and has asked to be added to the list of “secure” countries. In the meantime, in the name of reciprocity, it was decided last week to photograph and fingerprint (with ink, in this case) all Americans landing at Sao Paulo. According to the Brazilian border police, Americans appear to be extremely aggravated by the procedure….up until they are informed that the same treatment is applied to Brazilians arriving in the United States.
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www.truthout.com
By Pascal Riche
Liberation
Tuesday 06 January 2004
Since yesterday, the majority of foreigners who land at American airports are entered into police files. They stand in front of a round digital camera that takes their picture; they put one index finger, then the other, on an orange glass shelf, and their fingerprints are taken electronically. The intelligence collected is immediately compared to the FBI’s terrorist suspects’ list: in a few seconds, the computer clears the visitor or identifies a suspect. In the second case, the person is interrogated by the FBI in an airport room. In this first stage at least, nationals of twenty-eight countries, including France, are exempt from these controls.
This new procedure, baptized US-Visit (for United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology), had been decided upon by Congress two years ago, while the feelings created by the September 11, 2001 attacks were still running high. After an initial investment of $380 million and a test period in the Atlanta airport, the program was launched yesterday on a wide scale for those arriving at 115 airports and 14 ports. It will soon be put in place at 50 Mexican and Canadian border crossing posts. Over a full year, 24 million visitors with visas will have to submit to these controls. At the end of 2004, visitors will also have to signal their departure from American territory: they will have to scan their prints at electronic boundaries again.
Mistakes
Yesterday morning at the Atlanta airport, Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, “proudly” presented the launch of a program that will, he said, help to “keep our borders open to visitors and closed to terrorists.” He specified that fingerprinting would be fast and “without ink”, as though that were the principal subject preoccupying freedoms’ defenders. He went on to assure that the information collected would be protected by American privacy law and that only Federal agents would have access to it.
During the several weeks of testing in Atlanta, 20,000 people were controlled. According to Tom Ridge, the computer picked out 21 of those, who were wanted by Federal authorities for “drug trafficking, rape, or violation of immigration law.” However, public freedoms’ defenders and immigration specialists worry: “The problem is the reliability of the information contained in the Federal data base. Lots of people are in there by mistake, and, once they’re there, it’s very difficult to get them out. Since September 11, the FBI can put anyone in there as seems best to them. I would not be surprised if people are unjustly sent back at the border,” comments Crystal Williams, spokesperson for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, in Washington. Moreover, the program’s effectiveness in the anti-terrorist struggle is questioned by certain experts. The new system will certainly permit deterrence of known criminals from entering the United States, but, as M.J. Gohel, a security expert at the London Asia-Pacific Foundation, emphasized yesterday on CNN, “terrorists are often young men of good family, with an education and no police record”…
The new system has at least one merit: it has allowed a partial elimination of the humiliating procedure put in place by the Justice Department after September 11 which required nationals from twenty-five “at risk” (i.e. Muslim) countries to come and register themselves every year with the Federal authorities.
Reciprocity
The sharpest reaction to US-Visit came from Brazil. This country does not appreciate the treatment America accords its nationals one bit and has asked to be added to the list of “secure” countries. In the meantime, in the name of reciprocity, it was decided last week to photograph and fingerprint (with ink, in this case) all Americans landing at Sao Paulo. According to the Brazilian border police, Americans appear to be extremely aggravated by the procedure….up until they are informed that the same treatment is applied to Brazilians arriving in the United States.
-------
www.truthout.com