Air America breaking news: "USA to fingerprint ALL visitors !!!"

Chad Irby wrote:

Try any of the African nations, for example.
Or Russia.



Ah, the advanced world! (-;

gld

mtravelkay wrote:


I have never had my finger print or photo taken at Immigration in
Russia, have you??? I am not saying there is no reason for the US to
do it, only that I haven't seen it done in Russia.


No fingerprints for Russia, but a passport photo with visa application.
EVERYBODY requires a visa application.

The border process was two guys looking at you, then your passport
photo, then you again, and then a subtle nod to each other that each
sees the guy in the photo standing in front of them.

gld

Chad Irby wrote:

When you're flying in on a hundred-seat airliner and there's four guys
working the desk, you're going to get through faster than if you're on
one of four 747-400s landing in the same hour...



You actually touch on a good point ... the BICE (Bureau of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement) is way, way understaffed, so is Customs. Plus,
they have to crosstrain to help relieve each other!

I read the USA Today's travel section (love Ben Mutzbaugh's Today
in the Sky news compendium) regularly, the TSA has been hit with
manpower cutbacks. Thus long domestic lines just to get on a plane.

gld

On Sun, 4 Apr 2004 14:11:40 +0100 Marie Lewis
said...

True, but going through Canada is a hell of a lot of trouble, just to
avoid an extra wait to enter the United States directly.

It really is not a question of the extra wait, for us at least.
Anyway, Canada suddenly seems much more attractive than the USA.

Personally I've always found Canada more attractive than the USA....

--
Phil Richards
London

Oelewapper wrote:

Anyway, I hope the EU will impose the same regime on US-folks going through
our airports and seaports - especially aiming at America's "illegal
combatants" as they are shipping their hardware back to the base ... But
that's a completely different story,... or is it ???



The gear is probably staying, the Shiites with Sadr in the lead seem to have
created their own Viet Cong ... )-;

At least Fox News hasn't tried to call Sadr a Saddam-lover since his dad,
two brothers and an uncle, all Shiite clerics, were murdered by Hussein.

gld

Quantum Foam Guy wrote:

I know what you are referring to, of course. The US government didn't fund
IRA terrorists, Marie, unless Ted Kennedy had a secret slush fund that we
don't know about. To say the USA "financed" the IRA is therefore very
disengenuous of you. What happened in the 1970s and 1980s was a group of
private stoopid Irish-American citizens (not the American government) gave
money to the IRA.


Agree ... US-financed =/= American-financed.

A good point. I hope that you made that point a year ago, too,
distinguishing
German and French citizens and private enterprises from their governments.

gld

Marie Lewis wrote:

They were not going to the USA, or even entering Spain. They lived there.
Like the 911 culprits. And they had full visas.



Actually, better than the 9/11 culprits since some of the Spain conspirators
are/were permanent residents or naturalized citizens, plus a couple of
native Spaniards of the criminal persuasion who supplied them but did
not know what the ultimate goal was.

The 9/11 culprits had visitor visa overstayers as well as some on valid
visas.

I don't know if the news ever made it across the pond but the US has
seen nearly 40 US citizens convicted in terror-related cases including
the "Portland Seven" and the "Buffalo Eight" - 14 out of 15 were born
Americans, native-born like the eight apprehended last week in the UK
and the one in Canada ... Even with electronic monitoring by all of
the wealthy countries, all would have been allowed entry to home.

gld

Chad Irby wrote:

The folks from countries with government-sponsored health care,with
the government knowing the results of their last rectal exams,


Is that the case for US seniors on Medicare?

[In full retirement swing by the baby boomers, a third of the US
will be under Medicare ... 2:1 worker to retiree ratio, etc.]

gld

nobody wrote:

Well technically, since health care workers are employed by the government,
then it is true that government employees have access to your records :-)



Most countries fund health insurance, like the US does with Medicare, not
public HMO's like the UK National Health Service where employees are,
practically speaking, like civil servants. Even there, doctors can be found
in independent offices taking some of their income contracting to NHS.

gld

nobody wrote:

And just how will the usa verify your fingerprints ? If you're a foreigner who
has never been to the USA, your fingerprints will be "virgin". So terrorists
will now know that they can only travel once to the USA since on a second
attempt, they might be spotted.



A good point, unless one of the dozen or so uncoordinated US watch lists
happen to be updated with information from MI5, all of the eight British
citizens arrested on terror charges last week, with clean records, would
have gotten into the US with return tickets and reservations for Disney-
world.

gld