OH MY GOD! This is just the WORST possible thing that could happen...the sky is falling the sky is falling. My basic human and civil rights are being violated because the US wants to take my picture and finger print me...all electronically. Geesh...let's whine a bit. Simon...what's YOUR solution to border security then? Real easy to criticize...let's her suggestions.
Um, what he said. Yeru is in the military? And I imagine if so he has been fingerprinted. I have a commerical drivers license, class B, not even a class A yet and I have been fingerprinted several times. For jobs. I am an American, already living in america. I have all of my IDs. I have family, and a resident and other proofs of who I am. I have my schools that I attended here. Yet still I have been fingerprinted. And had numerous background searches done. That is something which I have a right to..a right to work.
As of five or six years ago banks require a thumbprint if you try to cash a check from one of their account holders. Unless you have an account with that bank. A check is a demand for money. It is not a request to the bank. The bank is not providing ME a service, they are providing their client a service. Otherwise the client would have to pay me in cash. Yet still I get fingerprinted...again over something that is my right. I dont complain about this, or the background checks or the fingerprinting to get jobs or any other kind of fingerprinting Ive had done.
Do I have a right to visit england? Or france? Not if their leaders and laws say I do not. If I want to visit I have to follow their laws. The same thing. ive been printed for things I have a right to. If others, including allies, want to visit america, why should they be held to weaker standards than us? Are we always being fingerprinted? No. Will it come someday, maybe. So what.
Will it have solved the issues of 9/11? Probably not back then. Will it now? Maybe. Will it solve every terrorist attack? Unlikely. Will it solve some? How many remember the man trying to sneak in from Canada on the Millenium? They got him. We wont stop EVERY attack. But we can make it far more difficult for terrorists to act. We can REDUCE the number and the seriousness of those attacks. And the "if it only saves one" quip usually ticks me off but in this case, yes if it helps prevent even one attack, it's done its job.
People act as if this is the ONLY thing that the governement is doing to protect americans and our visitors. It isnt. I do not like or agree with ALL the steps that they are taking. But many of them are very reasonable. In addition Ive never been in the military or a part of the police force, and I am smart enough to realize that as a result they know things that I do not know. Some things are too far yes. But background checks and fingerprinting on those that come into the country? No I think that is entirely reasonable.
It is also reasonable that other countries require the same of people, including americans, that are coming into their countries.
