Posted on 01/01/2004 12:49:52 PM PST by Dallas59
Brazil Starts Fingerprinting U.S. Travelers 36 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian (news - web sites) police on Thursday began fingerprinting and photographing U.S. visitors on orders of a judge who compared planned U.S. security controls on travelers from Brazil and other nations to Nazi horrors.
Related Links • US-VISIT Program (dhs.gov)
Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva, furious at U.S. plans to fingerprint and photograph millions of visitors on entering the United States, ordered Brazil's authorities do the same to U.S. citizens starting on Thursday.
"We've begun doing this," said a Federal Police spokeswoman at Brazil's Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo.
The judge's order came after Brazil's Federal Public Ministry filed a complaint in court over the U.S. measure.
The US-VISIT system is meant to identify people who have violated immigration controls, have criminal records or belong to groups listed as terrorist organizations by the United States.
Starting on Monday, people who need visas to enter the United States will be digitally fingerprinted and photographed when they pass through immigration at major U.S. airports and seaports.
The measure does not apply to citizens of 27, mainly European, nations who do not need a visa to enter the United States.
"I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis," said Sebastiao da Silva in the court order released on Tuesday.
Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Brazil were not immediately available to comment.
Federal Police in Sao Paulo were not able to confirm how many ports of entry had begun the controls and how many U.S. citizens had been fingerprinted and photographed so far.
The order by Sebastiao da Silva, a regional federal judge in the state of Mato Grosso, can be overturned by Brazil's justice system if he is considered to be acting outside of his powers, a Federal Police spokesman said.
Brazilian Foreign Ministry officials were not available to comment on the ruling, which urges the government to pressure the United States to exempt Brazilians from the US-VISIT system.
Inveja e merde, chato.
Wise as you may be, I'll stick to statistics. 25 People a day are killed in Sao Paulo every day compared to 3 or so in NYC.
How many are kidnapped in Brazil or any SA country for that matter per day? It's a common practice to kidnap and expect ransom in those countries.
Let's assess risk then, shall we? Of those killed, or kidnapped, of a population in the millions, your chances are extremely slight? Right? Wrong. Anyone who can post on FR would qualify as top tier in Brazil. I.E. The 1% upper crust VS the 99% everyone else.
My family hosted 3 exchange students from Brazil and over the past 30 years, we know them and their families very well. When members of our family go there, our friends assign guards and a driver to accompany them anywhere. Some 15 years ago, the guards had a shootout with attempted kidnappers on the street. No one harmed, but it put an exclamation point on the risk.
If you feel Brazil is safe, more power to you. Everyone else should be alert, aware and have lots of other folks around to discourage misdeeds.
This is not quite the end of the story. Starting 10/26/2004, people from these 27 countries who want to enter the U.S. without using a visa will need to have their biometric details in their passports - something that is close to nonexistant in these countries.
In effect, from next autumn on, there will be considerably fewer visitors to the U.S.
G.
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