Homeland Security To Scan Citizens Exiting US 676
An anonymous reader writes "The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travellers departing the United States. From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta. The controversial plan to scan outgoing passengers — including US citizens — was allegedly hatched under the Bush Administration. An official has said it will be used in part to crack down on the US population of illegal immigrants."
What if you refuse? (Score:5, Interesting)
When you come in to the US, they tell you that you don't have to comply with the checks, but that if you don't you can't enter. So what if you refuse to comply with that one? You can't leave?
What shoudl happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Barriers to leaving a country (Score:3, Interesting)
For regular people. (Score:5, Interesting)
If a corporation is hurt by a policy, something will be done. If average workers are hurt by a policy, nothing will be done, until the problem can no longer be ignored. It's one of the downplayed societal ills, since illegal immigration has been supported by Republican and Democrat administrations.
Large companies love a huge illegal immigrant population. The state picks up their health and education bills, and the illegal workers accept lower wages that can be used to threaten other workers with.
Your Papers, Please (Score:5, Interesting)
it will be used in part to crack down on the US population of illegal immigrants."
The only way fingerprinting could possibly aid in tracking illegal immigrants is if it was used to track every single US citizen and legal alien. Then anyone caught on the street without their fingerprints in the system is by definition illegal. And even that is only useful if people are routinely fingerprinted on the street. I'm pretty sure there's a name for that kind of system.
The more likely use, down the road a (very short) way, is to make emigration illegal, or at least restricted. There's a name for places where that happens, too.
Everybody likes to talk about police states in the past tense, or in the abstract. Nobody expects the Spa... the real dictatorships. They aren't created all at once out of the blue, and they're seldom openly announced as such.
Re:Idiocy (Score:1, Interesting)
Illegal immigrants comprise less than 5% of the US population. Taxes are withheld from the wages of the vast majority of them for services they'll never receive but are available to citizens (social security, etc.). Compare the $millions "lost" to these folks versus the $millions truly lost in prevention or detection schemes which fail to do anything but erode the privacy rights of citizens.
/. identifies the problem and gives the solution! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Idiocy (Score:5, Interesting)
As to illegals, I have a sister-in-law who was once illegal. She was able to come and go pretty much at will, even though she was illegal. fake IDs (including passports) made all that TRIVIAL.
Exit Tax (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97245,00.html [irs.gov]
To leave the country, you have to pay taxes for all of your assets, and renounce your US citizenship if you'd like to stop paying the IRS.
I'm actually in favor of regulations against capital flight, but this is probably going a little too far...
Re:What if you refuse? (Score:3, Interesting)
What if you are a US citizen?
Re:Idiocy (Score:5, Interesting)
You're kidding, right? While there's certainly individuals in both groups who wouldn't be easily mistaken for being part of the other group, there are definitely individuals in each group whose appearance is more ambiguous.
Besides, there's a lot of Mexicans who look to me just like any northern-European-descended American. Not all Mexicans are directly descended from native Americans, you know. A lot are mostly Spanish, and some are even German. Watch some Spanish-language soap operas on your local spanish-language channel some time: a lot of the people on there don't look much different from Americans, and have rather pale skin.
Lots of people could be easily made to pass as another ethnic group just by changing their clothes and haircut. That's exactly what the Al Queda hijackers did: they cut their hair and shaved their beards. Many middle-easterners don't look that different from many Americans except for their beards. In addition, many Israelis look much like the Arabs who hate them.
Re:As a famous terrorist leader once said... (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Barriers to leaving a country (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not saying you are... yet. It's interesting that your country is building nice big fences and at the same time starting to do things like take your fingerprints when you want to leave. How does that help keep illegals out?"
Re:As a famous terrorist leader once said... (Score:3, Interesting)
Fundamentalist Christianity doesn't rule US foreign policy. While these people do exist, and have had some influence in the US federal government at various times, it is not as absolute as you paint it to be.
We're far more about pandering to our base, making uninformed decisions, and using sovereign nations as pawns in domestic politics and PR campaigns.
Re:Idiocy (Score:5, Interesting)
That being the case ... what, exactly, are they afraid of?
Sane people voting them out of office.
Small business is what I do. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've run several small companies, grossing from 500k to 6 million. I know about the red tape. I've also worked in larger corporations, and I know about their internal red tape.
What I've come to realize is that large corporations are inherently tyrannical. Further down another poster makes a salient point about China - it's very business friendly because it totally empathizes with the way they operate. Orders come from above and are not to be questioned. Conformity to this tyranny is a prerequisite to be invited to the party, and if you have a problem with the top rung management, good luck getting an audience with them.
Conversely, small businesses like the ones I prefer are far more democratic. The lowest paid employee often has direct contact with the owner. This makes his impact radically different than serving the function of something that has not yet been automated or outsourced. He has room for creativity, room to make a difference in how the business is run. He is a person instead of a process.
Your sig asks how the powerful became powerful in our country. Since we have moved so far away from the democratic ideal, of the rule of law and men being equals in front of it, to celebrating personalities and the new aristocracy of corporate power, the answer is that money has become more important than values. Those who are powerful in today's America accept that early, and exploit as many people as they can to achieve their wealth. The wealthy pass on the spoils of their exploits to their children, who dutifully try to replicate what their ancestors accomplished.
The problem with this system is that it is totally against free market principles. There is no merit or true value from making money from money. That's why usury laws are so important, and also why they vanished from our country early in the 20th century. That's why taxes were always raised when we went to war, to make sure the powerful weren't so quick to send our children off to die. When money is the only vote, what kind of society do you think you will end up with? Does Bill Gates or Steve Jobs really deserve billions of votes compared to the tens of thousands given to a school teacher? A person given these parameters should not be surprised at what the result is - a society that worships wealth and power, and engages in destroying the only check to that power, which is a democratic government.
But the cruellest of our revenue laws, I will venture to affirm, are mild and gentle in comparison of some of those which the clamour of our merchants and manufacturers has extorted from the legislature for the support of their own absurd and oppressive monopolies. Like the laws of Draco, these laws may be said to be all written in blood.
--Adam Smith
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
--Major General Butler, USMC Retired
"War is a Racket"
Re:Idiocy (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd argue that a lot of people are letting their fear of immigrants drive them right into that.
History will likely judge our allowance of illegal immigration and the creation of a de facto second class as the greatest travesty against human rights of late 20th and early 21st century. And will likely be compared to height of slavery in the US of the 19th century.
A government is wrong when a they decide that one group of people don't get the same protection from violent crime, the same basic services, or protection from exploitation. Why would anyone pay an illegal immigrant the state or federal minimum wage? While people certainly have a choice to live here, and are, in my opinion, moving here of their own free will, it is hell of an embarrassment for a major democratic free country to offer people second class citizenship. We have created a multi-generation(no exaggeration) second class sub-society by turning a blind eye to the problem instead of revising their immigration and guest worker system. One of the issues I have with uncontrolled immigration is that when violent criminals(organized drug cartels, rapists, thugs, etc) cross the border unchecked they slip into the communities of illegal immigrations and prey on them. For every 99 people that are peaceful reasonable folks that just want to support their family, there is a monster that follows them like a shadow. In a community where crime is horribly under reported, these monsters can terrorize a community and destroy lives. And the police can do little to stop them if they aren't really here.
People should either work here, after filling out the right paperwork, or not. Creating a new underground society because we're pussy footing around the politics and money related to illegal immigration is just shameful. If we can't make a profit in agriculture by paying people minimum wage to do the labor, then we need to explore more efficient means (more mechanization perhaps?) If paying minimum wage means cheap labor isn't available for building homes and tending to our lawns, we will have to adjust. We managed to build houses in the 40s to 60s by paying a relatively decent wage.
Most of the time I feel the illegal immigration debate is dominated by two opposite but equally irrational forces. Xenophobic hard liners that insist that amnesty for illegal immigrants will induce mass immigration who will "steal" American jobs and flood our healthcare system. And a knee-jerk political crowd that labels anyone who discusses the illegal immigration problem as a bigot and racist, and that we need to do more to support the inevitable influx of people, even if they are undocumented. I think I will label the Xenophobic crowd as redneck bigots, and the Politically Correct crowd as racist shills for corporate America.
Re:Idiocy (Score:3, Interesting)
Understood though I did get your original point and I agree with it. My post was not intended to target you, more to question the level to which being terrified by terrorism is justifiable. I don't think it is. You will not die from a terrorist act. Given you aren't in a military occupation that statement is 99.99%+ likely to be true.
Less than 30 years ago we were under much greater threat of widespread death and destruction during the cold war and everyone seemed to understand that giving away all their freedoms wasn't appropriate. Why should it be appropriate now when there is no reasonable scenario that approaches that level of danger and destruction?
Why are they exaggerating the threat? I think its best not to assume a conspiracy where simple laziness and greed can do the job. Fear is a useful tool for politics - it makes people pay attention.
Re:Idiocy (Score:2, Interesting)
The pilot program is only in select locations, so they cannot put people in jail/rooms. This is because the publicity surrounding detention would deter people from exiting the country in say, Detroit.
The pilot, and ultimately any partial coverage (i.e. less than 100% exits gathering prints), will rely on the cost/economics of traveler's inconvenience. People may be willing to drive 100 miles west to avoid being printed, but you can only get printed once (you only care once), and certain things like plane tickets are non-transferable.
Presumably when total coverage is reached, you simply won't be able to leave the country without giving the feds your prints. But, by then, assuming gradual increase of coverage, for the reasons above, it is very likely you already gave your prints anyways =).
There's really only one way to truly solve this idiocy: less federal power (i.e. transferred to states) and better education. Unfortunately these are two long term solutions, and better education requires removal of the public system, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
Correction: Only for NON-US citizens (Score:2, Interesting)
The summary description on ./ is wrong. If one does RFA all the way to the end, one will see the following:
Editors Note - This story originally contained a representation that the biometrics trial in Atlanta and Detroit included the fingerprint scanning of US citizens. This has since been proved to be incorrect and the story has been modified - only non-US citizens will be expected to provide a biometric record.
As a US citizen living in France, and often travelling through Detroit and Atlanta to get to/from Chicago, I'm relieved that I won't be delayed by this hassle. As a human being, I don't agree with the idea of requiring visiters to submit their fingerprints to the the US government - I feel it is infringing on one's human rights and/or privacy, and feel ashamed when I see fellow travellers submitting to this procedure upon entry into the US - but it's too early in the morning for me to formulate a clear and logical argument against the requirement...
Re:They arlready do this to non US residents (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been to the US many years ago, before 9/11 - I still have a US Visa in my passport (not needed anymore).
Since then I've moved countries twice and went on vacations (and sometimes business) to countless countries.
Yet I've never again been to the US - I purposefully refuse to travel there because of things like this and I've even been offered a job in Silicon Valley a couple of years ago.
20 or 30 years ago the USA was a nation admired by the vast majority of people out there - a land of dreams for many, even in other rich nations and amongst well educated people. Nowadays it's just a majorly fucked-up place.
The USA looks a lot like a modern empire on it's twilight years - a bit like ancient Rome when the empire was unraveling.
Many of the greatest ancient empires collapsed due to internal corruption rather than fell to external enemies. What's with the USA now looks a lot like that.
Re:Idiocy (Score:3, Interesting)
Terrorism is a non-threat.
That's wrong. Terrorism is a threat. It's just not a very significant one for most people so long as a few simple steps are taken (like not taking random parcels onto planes for strangers) most of which are just plain old common sense anyway.
Yes, have specialist police units watch suspected terrorists. After all we do the same to suspected mobsters and spies too. Also yes to keeping guns and knives out of the cabin (I don't want anyone going postal near to me, and planes are stressful places). But cutting out a bunch of the useless security theater would be a good thing too. In particular, the universal shoe checks and the liquid ban just make people real grouchy. If we could come up with a reliable way of scanning luggage without having to take laptops out of our bags, that'd be even better since then going through security would be a breeze.
(FWIW, the US probably wasn't applying enough security checks before 9/11. But now they've gone the other way...)