Ashcroft's fallout from Brazil - What next?

Probably the best place for this thread. Perhaps trilingual should move the one on the south of the border folder here.

I assume there some response to a similar act by the French. It was easy to find ( on the same page as the bbc link posted about the OP). Was there some kind of peaceful resolution and perhaps we can do the same thing with Brazil?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2989637.stm

Jeff

I wonder if the U.S. government is photographing and fingerprinting all foreign visitors from Saudi Arabia? After all, last time I checked, all of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, and none from Brazil.

Yes, indeed. Reciprocity is a beautiful thing. I hope and expect that more countries will find the balls to do the same. Only when Americans begin to feel the true effects of this absurd war will the genie begin to fit back into the bottle!

This is just ridiculous. Every passport is checked on arrival at any international airport around the world. Every entry and exit you make to any major country is tracked on computers. Most countries can already tell exactly how many trips you've made to their country, when, and where.

I've just spent the last 4 weeks going through the applications for Polish and Czech visas for my forthcoming trip to Europe. These guys want to know all about me, my trip, my contacts in those countries, and so on. About the only thing they didn't want to know was who I was planning to have sex with (maybe that was on p.5 of the visa application that I didn't pick up?).

The invasion of your privacy is already so comprehensive by computerised passport checks and visa applications that the addition of fingerprint checks and photos is hardly anything to get excited about. The description of it by the Brazilian judge is so absurd as to show how ignorant he is of international affairs.

And tracking passports is just the beginning. All currency movements of more than about $10,000 are automatically tracked by banks and finance houses around the world. The books you import from Amazon.com are subject to customs inspection. And so it goes on. Nobody could seriously get worried about fingerprint checks and the like - it just goes with the turf when you travel internationally.

The EU has now realised that this kind of checking of people is impossible for mass travel within Europe. Hence we now have the Schengen agreement which removes passport checks for a lot of internal European travel. It mirrors a Benelux agreement that's been there for many years. I've never flashed a passport crossing the Dutch/Belgian border.

And going into the future, biometric data will soon be included in all passports, which means things like fingerprints, eyeprints and perhaps even DNA samples will be encoded and can be checked by computers whenever you travel abroad.

In short, get used to it! If you want to maintain your privacy, stay at home.

>Yes, indeed. Reciprocity is a beautiful thing. I hope and

>expect that more countries will find the balls to do the same.

> Only when Americans begin to feel the true effects of this

>absurd war will the genie begin to fit back into the bottle!

Absurd war? I assume that you are speaking of the War in Iraq and not the War on Terrorism. (Two separate conflicts for the Republicanally impaired amongst you.)

>>Only when Americans begin to feel the true effects of this

>>absurd war will the genie begin to fit back into the bottle!

>

>Absurd war? I assume that you are speaking of the War in Iraq

>and not the War on Terrorism. (Two separate conflicts for the

>Republicanally impaired amongst you.)

The war in Iraq was contrived, as I think almost everyone alknowledges now as the alleged WMD in Iraq have yet to be found.

As for the other war, I have never understood a war on an undefined noun, but be that as it may, I think a war on zionism would be far more productive in eradicating "terrorism" and its responses than this ill-conceived venture in which we are now engaged. Some of us warned that there would be serious consequences to the U.S. for 8 years of the unprecedented Clinton/Gore zionist orgy, and so neither 9/11 nor its aftermath comes as much of a surprise. What does surprise somewhat is that W has embraced the zionist dogma which his father and James Baker resisted so assiduously in the first Bush presidency. That held the promise after the Madrid Conference of real peace in the middle east until the Clinton/Gore crowd chose to put the interests of a tiny but wealthy and disloyal religious minority ahead of those of the American people.

Ugh! Auntie S is back under yet another nickname! Please honey, go crawl back into your hole, just like your hero Saddam did!

Is it bigotry to take measures to identify foreign travelers into America at a time when terrorists seek to enter and attack? Note that Ashcroft's efforts are not really aimed at a particular race or color of people, but at an origin - outside the U.S.

Rabbi T, someday even you will come to see that your ideas are in the minority. Across the world, the zionist state can only count on the support of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands apart from the U.S. so it is a bit silly and/or delusional to believe that silencing one man is going to give you and yours anything but a temporary reprieve.

I suppose not.

To be honest we should inject microchips into their bodies like we do with little puppies, so we can track their every move. Photographs and fingerprints seem a bit dated, no?

We should inter all Arab-Americans too... like we did the Japs.

Well, you're welcome to intern Auntie S, for all I care!

But there's an error in one of the other postings. The fingerprinting requirements aren't aimed at all foreigners. Only foreigners who don't come from rich, mostly white, countries (i.e., Canada, the European Union, Australia, Japan and Singapore). Everyone else has to go through the whole humiliating visa application process and then be subjected to this additional indignity upon arrival, even if their country of origin isn't one that has generated (or threatens to generate) terrorists or other security threats to the U.S. There hasn't exactly been a flood of Chilean or Uruguayan terrorists, for example, nor is there likely to be, but citizens of those countries get lumped in and treated the same way as citizens of countries where there IS a real threat of terrorism. And, ironically, at least for a while we were putting Latin Americans through the third degree while turning a blind eye to middle-class Saudi Arabians (who, as you recall, were the great majority of the 9/11 suicide bombers).

Anyway, there's more on this in a similar thread in the Escorts South of the U.S.A board. What a cheery way to start the New Year. Bleah! x(

>Is it bigotry to take measures to identify foreign travelers

>into America at a time when terrorists seek to enter and

>attack? Note that Ashcroft's efforts are not really aimed at

>a particular race or color of people, but at an origin -

>outside the U.S.

Always nice to see a new member of the Collective parroting the party line.

The above, of course, is just so much Bushit. If what ou say is true, where are the controls for European passenegers, or better yet, Middle Eastern passengers??

As far as I can see the common denominator for the countries to be fingerprinted is lack of strong security measures and potential for corruption in issuing identity documents. Any terrorist worthy of the name knows that flying in direct from the Middle East with, say, a Syrian passport is a recipe for a full body search. But imagine coming in via, say, Brazil with a fake Brazilian passport. Or via Nigeria or any other one of the countries where fake passports are much more easily obtainable. By contrast it's as difficult to get an Australian passport as an American one, ditto a French, and so on. Hence one can be a bit more confident that a French or German passport really is what it says. Not foolproof, but enough to make fingerprinting unnecessary.

I understand Middle easterners are subject to all of these new rules like anyone else. The only people who DONT have to go through this are the relatively small number we have an arrangement with.

I guess the best thing Brazil or any other country could work on is developing whatever procedures are necessary to skip the visa process entirely.

I hate to beat a drum here but France has had this policy for about 8 months. What effect has it had on travel and business there? IF it has had a big impact thats a powerful argument against these new rules.

Jeff

France is fingerprinting and photographing American tourists? When did this start?

Meanwhile, the whole thing is beyond stupid. Why do we need to be doing this at the ports of entry when people have already been through a literal third degree just to get a tourist visa (with pictures submitted to the application and everything)? It actually would make more sense to photograph and fingerprint people entering from the rich countries for whom the U.S. DOESN'T require visas, because anyone coming in from there could be a terrorist!

One of the best ways to demolish a bad policy is to mock it. I suggest we try starting a campaign to have everyone coming into the U.S. who might be subject to this idiocy to wear funny hats, obscene T-shirts, dramatic eyeshadow, Dame Edna eyeglasses, etc. Do it up right!!! Insist on a second photo if the first one isn't to your liking! Ask for an 8 x 10 color glossy!

Another way to overwhelm them is for everyone who goes through this to submit a Privacy Act request to the Department of Homeland Security for a copy of their picture and immigration file. You don't have to be a U.S. citizen to be entitled to request this information under the Privacy Act! So help some low-level bureaucrats keep their jobs, send in those requests! :+

I feel so ignored....sigh grin.

I'll repost the link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2989637.stm

Quoting the opening now....

All applicants for tourist visas to visit France will be fingerprinted under measures approved by the French cabinet on Wednesday.

The plan is part of a clampdown on illegal immigration spearheaded by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

date April 30. Unless the National Assembly balked it has been policy for a few months now. See articles linked on site for immigrant protests over French policy.

Jeff

Sorry there tri I missed the first question in your post.

No, the French policy like ours only applies to tourists from countries who DONT have a no visa policy with France. Americans will have no problems with this policy.

Sorry if I contributed to the confusion.

Perhaps the similar thread on the south of the border folder can be moved here?

Jeff

A special new years greeting for our "newest" member

HI AXE!

Jeff

>All applicants for tourist visas to visit France will be

>fingerprinted under measures approved by the French cabinet on

>Wednesday

This is irrelevant. It's OK if France does it. Haven't you heard? France is good and sweet and just. I mean - they're EUROPEANS - they would never do anything bad. France has been doing this for months, and all these loud defenders of civil liberties didn't utter a peep.

It's only when the U.S. does it that it becomes facsist and evil and wrong and bad and the equivalent of gas chambers.

And how could any program like this exist? I mean, it's not like the U.S. has any security concerns that might make the Government want to monitor who comes into the country. What do they think - that we were attacked by people from outside the country or something?

And fingerprinting people!?!? Why, that's worse than strip searching and gassing them to death. How can the U.S. possibly complain about rape rooms and mass slaughter and gassing women and children to death? After all, we FINGERPRINT foreigners who want to come into our country, so how we can condemn anything?

And look at all the harm this is causing! I mean - old U.S. citizens who want to go become permanent sex tourists in Brazil are now inconvenienced and embarrassed becasue the new country they chose to live in is angry at us! How can we prioritize their critical personal convenience issues over something as frivolous and irrelevant as the security of the citizens who actually choose to live in this country rather than leaving it to go chase cheap cock around South America? What kind of sickos are we?

>leaving it to go chase cheap cock

Nice alliteration.

I understood that that is EXACTLY the logic being used. I simply do not understand all the complaining about using logic and targeting areas that need to be targeted. The alternative is wasting an enormous amount of time where the threat is minimal. Sort of like searching the little old ladies at the airport just so that no one can cry “profiling!”

Cross-border travel is not a God-given right. After 9/11 the country was appalled at the state of our immigration policies and lack of control of our borders. Now the government is trying to make it more difficult for the bad guys to enter the country and people are complaining about that. I just don’t get it.

The exemption from the fingerprinting and photographing requirements applies to only about 25 countries -- mostly in Europe, but also including Japan, Singapore and Brunei. However a report I heard on CNN indicates that 80% of all visitors to the United States come from these exempt countries. Only about 20% of travelers will actually be subject to the new requirements.

>>leaving it to go chase cheap cock

>

>Nice alliteration.

The Comedian as the Letter C.

http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Wallace_Stevens/wallace_stevens_the_comedian_as_the_letter_c.htm

>And look at all the harm this is causing! I mean - old U.S.

>citizens who want to go become permanent sex tourists in

>Brazil are now inconvenienced and embarrassed becasue the new

>country they chose to live in is angry at us! How can we

>prioritize their critical personal convenience issues over

>something as frivolous and irrelevant as the security of the

>citizens who actually choose to live in this country rather

>than leaving it to go chase cheap cock around South America?

>What kind of sickos are we?

Dougie-poo, this is an example of your not reading what other people write, or twisting what they post into something entirely different.

NOBODY here, to my recollection, has said that the U.S. doesn't face serious security threats, or that there isn't an illegal immigration problem. People have taken issue with the paranoid, xenophobic and irrational means the U.S. has chosen to combat these problems. (People have also accused Britain, France and some other European countries of the same things with respect to their policies, which have often been blatantly racist, among other things. That doesn't mean, though, that those countries don't also face security and immigration problems.)

In the case of the U.S., it makes no sense to fingerprint and photograph visitors who've already gone through an extremely extensive, thorough, invasive (and humiliating) visa application procedure that requires submission of photographs which are then embedded in the new U.S. visas imprinted in their passports. We already know who those people are, and much more about them than most Americans (especially right-wing Americans) would be comfortable with the government knowing about them! If anything, we should be photographing and fingerprinting visitors from those mostly white, rich countries for whom visitor visas aren't required. Since those people have never been screened by anyone prior to arrival in the U.S., and are unknown to the authorities, it makes some sense that they be identified and screened before they're allowed to enter the country. People from the "poor" countries are already identified before they ever come here. And the recent terrorists have all come from "rich" countries in Europe or the Middle East.

Also, nobody here has complained about the inconvenience caused by Brazil's reciprocal action. All people here have said is that it isn't in Brazil's best interest to exercise its right of reciprocity when Brazil isn't facing threats of terrorism or illegal immigration from the U.S., and when Brazil is anxiously trying to promote tourism as a way of expanding its economy and generating jobs. Brazil should be trying to make it easier for Americans to visit Brazil, not more difficult. Brazil needs to be able to tap into the U.S. tourist market, as the U.S. is the world's biggest potential source of tourists. As long as Brazil makes it difficult for Americans to visit, they'll go to other places for their sun and sand, like Mexico or the Caribbean countries that don't require visas for American visitors. And that's definitely NOT in Brazil's best interest.

Finally, please can the "sex tourist" spew. If you've ever hired a sex worker in a city other than your own, you too are a sex tourist, so you might as well stop throwing stones at your own glass house!

Meanwhile...

... Americans who travel with their wrapped gifts are forced to open their packages for inspection, but possible terrorists could ship a bomb in a cargo hold because there is no screening of those boxes