I believe the policy is for international travel and then applies to non-US citizens. I travel extensively back and forth between Europe and the US for business and while I have no problem getting through customs and immigration as an American, my non-US colleagues do go through a much more detailed procedure (photograph, fingerprinting, etc) before clearing immigration.
Thanks for the explanation. I've had no need to leave the country since 9-11, so I didn't know this.
We travel internationally alot with our business. The only place we were ever fingerprinted (actually, it was just our thumbs) was Sao Paulo, Brazil. We did have body tempurature scans in Asia (during the SARS scare). Nothing similar in Europe. But, we do find security screenings are much more intensive outside of the U.S.
Flying to Riga, Latvia on Monday. Going through Stockholm. I will not fly through London or Berlin right now. Curious to see if anything has really changed.