Biometric Warfare

I decided a couple of years ago that I would never visit America. This is despite having friends and relatives there, and having wanted to visit California, New York, and a few other places for many many years, just to do the tourist thing.

Why??

Because I dont believe they need to take my fingerprints and photograph just for a short holiday visit to their country.

Im a law abiding citizen in my home country of Australia (which is a good friend to America), and also when I travel, yet here is a country that wants to fingerprint me like a suspected criminal before I can even enter, and then store my data in a database which they will later search, looking for criminals and terrorists.

We all know how accurate their intelligence and information gathering systems are - especially when they are looking for "Weapons of Mass Deception".

Just being in that database is a scary thought. What if they pull out my record in some kind of error and label me as a terrorist?? Stranger things have happened!!

Fine, no big deal, I just wont go there. End of problem.

Today, I read in the news that Japan has passed a bill to allow them to do the same thing.

That's a problem. My wife is Japanese, and I like Japan. We have family there, and Im sure we will be travelling to and from Japan for many years to come. Its unavoidable. I cant just decide not to go there, like I can with America, and still maintain a happy marriage, and good relationship with wife and family.

Here's the thing. Only foriegners are subject to this. Citizens and permanant residents do not need to provide fingerprints when they travel. These countries would never think - even for a minute - of trying to fingerprint their own law abiding citizens. The people wouldnt allow it, and the govenment would not last past the next election. It would be a huge issue!! Australia has been through this already, with the proposal of a national ID card, which was quickly and firmly rejected by the people. Yet these countries are quite happy to force this on foriegners, who have no choice but to accept it, and no power to prevent it.

The surprising thing is that this has forced me to completely reverse my thinking on biometrics and fingerprinting of foriegn visitors. Ive done a complete 180! Bring it on!!

While I completely disagree with having to provide my fingerprints to a foriegn government, when my own government does not even have the right to them unless I am first suspected of a crime, I now fully support the Australian Government in any attempt to introduce similar measures.

Our only defence to this practice which is starting to spread across the world is a retaliatory strike. This may even be the underlying reason why Japan has recently gone down this road.

If they want to fingerprint us, then we should fingerprint them. There is nothing else we can do. We dont have any rights in the countries that are doing this. We have no voice. No one speaks up for us. The only thing we can do is show their people the discomfort that we are feeling, by subjecting them to the same treatment.

Perhaps then the people will understand and not allow their governments to persue such practices, either domestically, or where foriegners are concerned.

Update: 23rd May, 2006

If you think mix-ups dont happen, take a look at this news item from 22nd May:

Mix-up brands innocent citizens as criminals

The British government, already under pressure over a series of blunders in its immigration and prison services, has confirmed it wrongly branded around 1,500 innocent people as criminals due to a computer mix-up.

It said the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), which carries out checks on people who have applied for jobs working with children or vulnerable adults, had confused the innocent people with convicted criminals because they had similar or identical names.

The names were stored on a police database....

"We make no apology for erring on the side of caution. We are talking about the protection of children and vulnerable adults," a Home Office spokesman said.