America's war on tourism: airlines to foot the bill for fingerprinting foreigners as the leave the US
The airlines are playing hardball in fighting the proposal -- they don't want to assume all those costs.
The Homeland Security Department, which currently fingerprints foreigners coming into U.S. airports, wants airlines to be responsible for taking fingerprints as these travelers leave...Link"Carriers are pulling out all the stops to kill" the proposal, said Stewart Verdery, a former Homeland Security assistant secretary for border and transportation policy. "My guess is they're going to be successful."
Robert Mocny, who heads the fingerprint program, said fingerprinting foreigners as they leave is essential. The information helps track those whose visas have expired and allows monitoring of people whose movements in and out of the USA suggest terrorist plotting. "It's a better way of monitoring the movement of individuals we have an interest in without them hiding behind a fake name," he said.
See also: US-VISIT immigration system spent $15 million per crook caught
Update: Updates to Schneier's post show that the cost is in the hundreds of millions, not billions, and that in addition to visa cheats, some petty criminals were also caught.
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i'm sure the international business community will simply LOVE this.
Wow.
If the government wants to tighten border security, who am I to say otherwise?
But for christ sake.... practice some oversight! $15bn on an unsuccessful program is absolutely insane. The brakes should have been put on *long* before the number got that high.
(That all said, it does make sense for air travelers to foot the bill for travel-related expenses. Otherwise, it's not exactly fair to those who don't do any sort of international travel)
#2
Although, I don't have a counter proposal, forcing businesses (and their customers) to foot the bill on a tragically huge folly, is pretty fucked up.
Of course it's either the airline customers, or the general tax-payer who will have to support this, but how can you put up with this crazy shit?
Can you not sue the policy makers? I'd say a $15 Billion bill, would have Bush/Cheny/DHS et al, washing dishes and shining shoes for a long, long time to come.
What a fucking mockery.
Wait!!
That is my proposal!
Set up the current administration in a small, travelling shoe-shine booth, to make up all the losses they have visited upon America since taking office.
Seriously, THIS WOULD MAKE MAD LOOT!
People would come from the world over to pay a dollar or two for Bush to spit-shine their shoes. I for one, would make mutiple trips..
Can one of you American Citizens write this up and send it to your congressman? I think we can actually win this thing.
"the program has caught approximately 1,000 minor immigration cheats who'd overstayed their visas"
So let me get this straight, they were trying to leave the country, then they were caught and prevented from leaving the country. Wasn't not leaving the country the reason they where apprehended in the first place?
"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't let you leave the country. We're going to kick you out."
Please tell me I have misunderstood this in some way. Please. Human beings can't be that stupid.
Spazzm, I'm with you, except that catching someone leaving the country lets them not re-issue that person with a new visa, the next time they apply.
So, although it sounds completely retarded, catching them on the way out, lets the enforcer know that a crime actually took place, a crime which they would have been unaware of otherwise.
At $15Mil per person though, they might want to restratagise :)
SCHMOD (#2) If $15 Billion failed plan is "absolutely insane" then how do you describe a $3 Trillion failed plan? At least DHS hasn't killed a city full of people...
Now it's down to a lobbying battle between "big airlines" and "big security" in a race to fill congress's PACs. It would be entertaining if it wasn't so tragic.
The link is to a comment made two years ago! This isn't so much old news but is indicative of how little attention we're paying to the incompetence and folly of all things republican bush.
I would hope that the current tally isn't $30 billion. But I wouldn't be surprised in the Keystone Cop version of an American police state.
The plan that #4 laid out sounds like a winner to me. :-)
In all seriousness though, Airlines are already strapped as it is in trying to keep prices attainable for the American middle class while paying through the nose for fuel and getting on their knees for the pilot's union. Hitting them with a fee to support a program that clearly doesn't work would be devistating on many levels.
This is just insane. But I love it!
Less people go to the USA -> more people travel to other countries -> Other countries win.
I don't think its the most clever decision in a country with such recession...
#8
I was being deadly serious.
Re: War on tourism; I'd love for it to be otherwise, but most people don't care about privacy enough to counteract the bargain price dollar. Hell. Ever *I*'m thinking about going to the US on vacation. And I read BoingBoing.
- European
Of course there is ongoing debate of just how scientific and accurate fingerprinting is. See this Lingua Franca article (PDF):
http://fp.bio.utk.edu/evo-eco/resources-this_semester/Cole-fingerprints.pdf
"I don't think there are any Russians, and they're ain't no Yanks.....just corporate criminals, playing with tanks!!"
just substitute "terrorists" for Russians and you get the idea.
#2: it does make sense for air travelers to foot the bill for travel-related expenses
This is nonsense. Yes, when you fly to the USA, you need a ticket, a suitcase and a clean pair of underwear. Perhaps bring some sunglasses.
See? Those are all reasonable travel-related expenses. Nobody's complaining. When some government makes a new rule that is useless, arbitrary and privacy invading, AND lets the victim (notice that word? I used it on purpose) foot the bill, we're bordering on the criminally insane.
The only thing keeping USA tourism from being non-existent is the sorry state of the dollar. Something to be proud of, I guess.
The US is actually fairly unique in not currently having any sort of check by an immigration agency whey you leave the country. Almost every other country in the world checks you as you leave as well as when you enter the country. The fact that they finally woke up to the fact that it would be nice to actually have some idea how many visas are being exceeded is a fairly sensible play. Resorting to such ham-fisted kludgework as trying to pawn it off on the airlines just indicates how ineptly the VISIT program was implemented in the first place. Rather than hiring security experts to come up with a comprehensive overhaul of the US's ridiculously lax immigration and border control policies they chose the plan that featured the neatest tech demos you could fit into a press release.
Whether the airlines pay for it, or the feds themselves pay for it, we all know who will actually be footing the bill...we will, and uh...Yes, we can!
Mark, that's just plain wrong. I go to Europe pretty often. I've never even once been checked leaving. Not once.
But what burns me about this is DHS trying to say MY GOD THIS IS SO IMPORTANT but we're not going to pay for it. But please take us seriously anyway.
Jerks.
By the way, Joddehaa -- global travel departures are up 28% in 2007 over 2000, but in the US, arrivals are down 11%. (DTMB)
All those people are choosing to go other places -- and yeah, the dollar being in the toilet is the only saving grace. The Commerce Department, of course, says "recordbreaking year!" because our 11% fewer travelers still spent more dollars than last year, but they don't bother with the rest of the story. Typical.
As an aside....I just found this out yesterday....
If you're working for DHS and stationed overseas and want to take your annual leave...The Department of Homeland Security only reimburses the costs of flying to London.... If you want to visit the "homeland" (United States) You have to pay for the flight from London to the US yourself.
All this would be solved if we traveled stark naked. Just sayin'
Here I propose a new Boing Boing site: BBPolitics. Since gadgets are grouped in its own site, so... why not?
Now Cory can write 4 times more all he wants about privacy and DRM, and Xeni can write 5 times more all she wants about all the independence and tyrannies in the world.
Sometimes things can be cross-posted like Joel's, but all the human rights watch can be more elaborated in its own site.
And we can keep Boing Boing a directory of *wonderful* things. You know, it's about wonders, and things that make you wonder and imagine.
@15 - "US's ridiculously lax immigration and border control" You are joking, right?
Arkizzle (3), someone's complained that you're being profane. Could you please contrive to not use fuck, fucketh, fucks, fucking, fucked, fuckalicious, fanfuckingtastic, absofuckinglutely, instantiate the unfuckatron, or swive any oftener than Joel does?
Thanks!
Kid (21), wonder strikes different people different ways.
Tourism to the USA is at an all time high due to the exchange rate. Fingerprinting, as foolish as it is, won't change that. The crashing dollar is great for our tourism industry. When a new administration comes into office the dollar will gradually gain strength, border policies will become tolerable, US tourism will take a bit of a hit, and Americans will finally be able to afford to visit Europe again.
#18
You are US citizen ?
Europeans generally treat foreigners differently depending where they come from. If you are an American they'll kiss your ass. If you are coming from third world or Eastern Europe they'll treat you like a shit on the border.
This is simply stupid (almost) beyond belief. It's another piece of evidence of the pure fantasy world that the current US government lives in. Are these imaginary terrorists any different from the imaginary WMDs in Iraq?
Gah. and a quick reminder to anyone who voted Republican in the last 2 elections: THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.
Oh.. and regardless of how effective it's been catching minor immigration violations, the cost isn't worth it. 15 mil. is not even a good price tag for catching a serial killer.
#23: Well, it is a suggestion to the very frequent amount of political material these days. It's a win-win in the way that more civlib articles can be written, while readers aren't forced to be bombarded by the writers' political stance.
(And you know, your reply sounds very much like those "if you don't like it, go away" type of comments that I read in the Tibet debate yesterday.)
If you were really the moderator, then you should help reflect this issue.
Or at least help your fellow member by letting me know if there's a way to do www.boingboing.net/no-civlib.
Exquese me? I'm not generally one to stand up for the airlines, but why should they have to foot the bill for fingerprinting? That's the government's job.
That said, it would be nice to know that the government is capable of doing it's job. This US VISIT program is certainly evidence to the contrary.
How do businesses decide who to send to the US to conduct business these days? Is it by short straw lottery? lowest sales that month? Is it going to become a status symbol that one is never required to go to America?
someone's complained that you're being profane
Jeez. If Arkizzle got busted for profanity, how many complaints do you get about my language? I'm the second most obscene commenter on BB, after Nik.
you get away with more because you're cute
But Arkizzle has that adorable accent.
Kid (27), you're posting in a civil liberties thread. You've been posting all over the civil liberties and political threads. How seriously am I supposed to take you when you complain about the amount of political content in Boing Boing?
As for being "bombarded by the writers' political stance": The comment you posted immediately before you posted your "BBPolitics" idea was about 4,333 characters/722 words long. Most Boing Boing entries are considerably shorter than that. Many of the longer political posts are written by Xeni, whose style is hardly bombastic. If you're being bombarded by Boing Boing entries, I can't see where it's supposedly been happening.
"If you don't like it, skip it and read something else" isn't a suggestion; it's basic online behavior.
I really am the moderator, and I don't fall for gambits like that.No. Sorry. You'll just have to scroll past those under your own steam. Or not, since you've shown no actual inclination to avoid those entries.Does that mean that we're not going to get BoingBoing Dating either?
How does one test the hypothesis that increased levels of security at airports makes a terrorist act less likely? Do you add layers of security and try to reduce the odds of it happen by small amounts? Or do you treat the threat of terrorism as an unlikely event that will happen no matter how much security we have? I tend to think that as we add layers of security we will continue to discover that saving human lives does not make sense. It's just more cost effective to let people die.
Quite frankly, all we need to do is have people press their hands on scan pads, wait a second or two and it's done. BFD. What happens when we have scanners like in Total Recall? Are we going to say no to THAT level of security just because it cost a lot and shows some TSA chick what a small dick you have?
Back scatter x-ray is not proven safe.
I would never walk though one.
Takuan, the technology will be safe. I'm sure you could walk through one of those things tens of thousands of times and suffer no more damage than you would if you were sun bathing--during a super nova. Seriously, the tech will be safe and will use protons. Or Dark Matter. Whatever.
well, if you're going to do that I'll just have to follow you around and twist every thread in to a debate on the legitimacy of the Welsh Ascendancy
If the airlines have to pay for it, won't they just declare bankruptcy again and get bailed out by the government?
I'd really like to visit the US (from the UK), but I'm not going to give my fingerprints to do so. Maybe I'll sneak in over the Canadian border ;)
Jupiter12, can you cite a source for "tourism is at an all time high?"
It's certainly not what I've heard and seen reported.
Cory, I'm not going to site figures. Go to New York and see for yourself. My Irish family just left, and with full bags of new stuff. Tourism is huge because the Euro is high. And so is Canadian currancy. That's not a hard cause and effect realationship to understand. What, you think because travel is more difficult that people wont come here and spend their money? Ha!
But I will --cite-- this: http://www.silobreaker.com/DocumentReader.aspx?Item=5_819335942
All figures are suspect when money is concerned.
I'm quite surprised that more people aren't discouraged from travelling to the US because of their fingerprinting. I really want to go to the US - I'm a big lover of many things American. Howerver I vehemently oppose being fingerprinted - and so won't travel there - weak dollar or no weak dollar.
John
BUSTED!
god damn.
oh well, house rules and all that huh?
i wonder how often that happens, and if i broke a record or something? hmm..
Antinous, thanks for noticing, I'm travelled so it's a bit mingled, but I'm so glad you like it :)
Takuan, cute eh? Will a leprecaun outfit do?
I just visited the site Jeff posted, and want to share the following graph with all of you:
http://www.silobreaker.com/NewsTrends.aspx?TrendDrillDownItems=11_303199,11_303293,11_78001&
I hope it's still as wonderfully silly in a couple of days. It pits (amount? of what? there's no real legend for the scale) Ipod against Acts of Terrorism against Europeans. As you can clearly see, there is less (reporting of? who knows?) terrorism when there's more Ipod. Hence, Steve Jobs is Osama Bin Laden.
Europeans are in the clear though.