Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed - Winston Churchill
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Fingerprint departing foreigners says US Homeland Security
NOT ONLY DOES the US government want to know who comes in to America, they want to know who leaves as well, and in order to do this, the Bush administration has dumped responsibility on US airlines and cruise ships to digitally fingerprint every departing foreigner.
The Government claims the move is necessary to combat the mass of illegal immigration, in which at least one million foreign nationals find ways to stay in the US undetected, every year. Most of them doing the jobs that hold US society together.
Unsurprisingly, the various trade organisations representing airlines and cruise operators are none too pleased about being ordered to shoulder responsibility for forcing foreigners to ‘hand’ over their fingerprints on the way out, nor the outrageous costs such a system would incur.
But Homeland Insecurity, which has been invading people’s privacy for quite some time already, don’t seem bothered that their new pettiness will cost the already hurting US airline industry another $2.7 billion in the next decade.
Head of the International Air Transport Association, Giovanni Bisignani (sounds like a foreigner to us), said on behalf of the 240 airlines his organisation represents that “outsourcing exit formalities to airlines is not a responsible approach". Especially seeing as most members of US airline security are illegal Mexicans anyway.
But Stewart Baker, assistant lackey at the Homeland Security department, threatened that if the airlines refused to comply, they’d be facing fines of up to $1,000 a day per passenger who left without giving up his private biometric details. And possibly water board torture too. Tsk, tsk, who do they think they are? Britain?
Congress has demanded that the new rules be implemented by June 30, 2009, but it’s likely they’ll already be in place by January 2009, just in case. Wouldn’t want six million foreigners slipping through the cracks till June, would we now? µ
L’Inq
Houston
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After 911 the only people who were allowed to leave America were Bin Laden family in private jets (of course with clearance from the White house). 

All 911 terrorist were Saudi, and US cannot touch anyone Saudi.

Why all this show off for rest of the world ??
As an American, I'm not alone in being embarrassed at this... but given who we managed to vote for up until the masses started to wake up in 2005-2006, there's not much we can do until next year.

Taking it as a given that we'll have a Democratic president next year (which is in no way a certainty, the press as a group badly wants to continue its relationship with the Republican political machine)...

So much of our cherished institutions are broken, it's going to be a while before we even get around to reforming the TSA. The way our constitution is set up, we can fix a lot of the universally-ridiculed excesses of the last eight years, given time, in 2009; But we'll not be able to completely snatch back the reins of government from the fascists and begin the serious rebuilding until 2011, barring an electoral miracle.

Bush attempted to bring us the privilege of reciprocal passport identification with our friends in the Great White North, but like in so many things, he failed (malice matched only by incompetence), and it had to be pushed back two years (the length of the backlog that the passport issuers, with no extra resources, immediately developed).

I don't know whether this is a way around that restriction, or not.
...who has serious issues with the government, I would nonetheless like to suggest to the brits posting here (I know plenty of other actually sane UK residents), mouths foaming with self-righteous indignation at the tyrannical police state in which I live, that they're welcome to stay where they are.

They're welcome to stay in a place where shrieking mosquito alarms are necessary because the kids are so bad, where cameras track their every move, where the government tells them what web sites are OK to visit, where they can, at any time and for any reason, be subjected to an "Anti-Social Behavioral Order" which is, as far as I know, open-ended and without oversight or appeal, where a video game can be banned for -everyone- because it might upset a child, and where free speech is not only limited, but doesn't even exist in the first place.

I will be perfectly happy not to meet those who ignore their police shooting a man in the face ten times because he was chilly, and then cry bloody murder when a US college student gets tased by a jumpy rent-a-cop.

I welcome the continuing non-presence in the United States of people who think that an idiot president, and overblown and useless security measures, are worse than the murder of tens of millions of people.

Is my country perfect? Hell no. Is our freedom in danger if our course doesn't change? Hell yes. And do we have enough idiots to deal with on our own without a bunch of sanctimonious hypocritical Englishmen adding to the mix.

We threw you out one time already, it's probably just as well you don't bloody well come back.

How's THAT for flame of the week?
I'm not a happy American, watching my privacy and freedom eroded daily. The US and UK gummints seem to be competing for the Police State award or something.

Don't blame our citizens. We only get to choose "Arsehole A" or "Arsehole B" every four years, then they run amok until time to pick another arsehole.

Oh, and have you seen the new crop of jerks we'll get to pick from later this `year? Gah...
Well...as an American, let me say....

...this is really dumb. How do I express my embarrassment at these idiotic policies? As an airline company I would say go ahead, fine me. All of our carriers are losing money anyhow. Maybe this would give the airlines a cash infusion if they failed because of this?

The failure of 9/11 was a failure of the bureacracy that was already in place. They knew who the people were - they just did not have the will to do anything.

And as the poster above noted - most of the security is now contracted out to Hispanic firms who employ (ahem) non-legal status staff. Oh, and the gardners too. Last I saw they were not a bunch of Czechs trying to stay here...

How about we do a better job on certain borders where thare are not enough staff to stop blatantly questionable immigration?

Truly I am sorry for this poor state of affairs. The idiots have put themselves in charge. I cant get out because my dollar doesnt buy anything anymore....
Ya, America has pretty much become a giant shit hole in the last 8 years. Thanks to all of this post 9/11 BS! If Obama isn't the one to replace Hitler, I mean Bush in the White House, then I'm out of this Cesspool of a country that would rather shit on their citizens while emptying their wallets than actually be a Democracy. That's saying a lot for someone who's family has served in the US military for over 150 years.
How can you even be sure fingerprints are all different anyway? There's only about four main types of whorly loopy patterns.
Also, mine changed. I used to have about five whorls when I was a nipper, now I have only the two and the rest are loops. What about things like that then?

Anyway, even if they really are (like snowflakes are meant to be, even though no-one's ever caught them all and actually checked have they), this is probably just a ploy to steal people's identities - one minute you have ink you need to be washing off your fingers, then by the time you get home 'you've' committed a bunch of felonies someplace on the ground, because the unsecure easily-hackable single-database they uploaded all the prints to was hacked and the IDs were faxed and e-mailed out to be used to aquire fake IDs around the globe.

Or worse - they'll use them all for some clone army they're building, and try to replace you with some zombie they made.
... or should i say European immigrants :D

Anyways, i think their whole government is retarded, starting from the top - and by that i mean their president... mr.Chimp... ooops Bush...

Why wouldn't they impose all the rules & regulations they can, because no one is complaining?

I for one am glad i don't live in such a dictatorship kind of country...
I wonder when the USA will change its name. The USA was the "home of the Free and the Brave" but has that changed. It makes me wonder what they should be called now " Home of the Dumb and Enslaved". They ( the USA) are making the old USSR look like a they were the good guys in that old battle called the cold war. The USA seem to be now controled by a bunch of tyrants. Their use of E-voting on a system that can be hacked by a 10 year old in 5 mins and a government controled by Big Banks and Oil Companies is no Democracy. Now they want to have a finger print data base of their what used to be guests but I guess that is also now changed aswell. I think I will be spending vacation money in a place just a little more welcoming.
So, next up is to recheck the fingerprints while in transit on the plane. That way, we can be sure that nobody removed their fingers while flying.

Wouldn't it be easier to end the discussion once and for all and just stuff a hackable RFID in everybody's dear privates who dear to come near the US within a 12 mile radius?

Or even better, lets organise an XPrize competition for defining the most definate and ultimate non-invasive invasion of privacy, which subsequently can be adopted by the rest of the world to harass US-citizens with.

My suggestion is to mandate a high resolution camera with audio for each and every person who looks different than, well, me, attached to the skull with implanted brainprobes in visual and auditive cortex. All to be wirelessly connected to the internet (IPv6 of course) and made available to any sincerely demanding party (after paying me some royalties).
This scheme will also make it easy to spot the illegals. They lack the camera and can be deported for surgery instantly. On the other side of the border it is easy too, we can spot the USfolks and go on to hack their brain-stored pron collection right away.
Does this mean they will be fingerprinting Canadians returning to Canada after a day trip to the Land of the not really free?
I can only say to those nut cases over there (the pond that is),

Sod Off then..

My passports (yes both of them) refuse to get anywhere near the US coast. It's bad enough that you strip us of all dignity when we arrive, now you want to take our flesh and eat it too?

Thank god I can go anywhere else in the world for anything I need, except of course the obligatory hole-in-the-head gun crime.

I'm spending all my money where you can't get to it. No wonder your economy is falling thru the floor.

BBFN, T42 anyone?


I must admit I've stopped visiting USA since they introduced the post-911 security stuff for visitors -- overlooking the fact that all the 911aircraft were internal flights.

However, the US has always recorded foreign visitors as they leave -- a simple step that we have ignored at our peril in the UK. 

As a result the US knows who has overstayed their welcome and we do not. 

Incidentally the system works in favour of Brits, who tend not to overstay -- so visas are easier for us to get (or may not even be required).
Mark my works:

Soon, real soon, the only rights you will have left as a human being citizen of either US or UK is to not have any rights. We are heading, capital H, into a super big brother control freak, cameras all over the place, bar coded, RFID implanted chip society.