http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200712/NAT2007121 3a.html
By Monisha Bansal CNSNews.com Staff Writer December 13, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun scanning international visitors' fingerprints at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., and it plans to expand the program. Privacy advocates, however, say the program will treat tourists like criminals and will deter tourism to the United States. The federal government plans to add 10 fingerprint scanners to nine other airports in the next few months and to the remaining 278 international points of entry by the end of 2008. "Anyone who's watched the news or seen crimes solved on television shows can appreciate the power of biometrics," said DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in a statement. They help the legitimate traveler proceed more quickly while protecting their identity and enable our frontline personnel to focus even greater attention on potential security risks. "Biometrics tell the story that the unknown terrorist tries to conceal, and it causes them to question whether they've ever left a print behind," Chertoff added. Stevan Porter, chairman of the Discover America Partnership, a travel industry group, said, "The travel industry welcomes the introduction of this critical security upgrade for America's airports, and we support deployment of this technology nationwide during 2008." Porter added, "We also need a nationally coordinated campaign to communicate a twofold message to our friends overseas: America welcomes you, and enhanced security at U.S. airports makes you and the world safer and more secure." He advocated for Congress to pass the <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.3232:> Travel Promotion Act of 2007, which would create a program to communicate U.S. security and visitor entry policies to international visitors. But Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute told Cybercast News Service that the program is a "serious privacy concern for visitors to the U.S. because their biometrics are entered into a database and they have no idea what may be done with that information in the future." "My understanding is that the DHS keeps that data for 75 years," Harper said. "Lawful visitors to this country, who come to snap pictures of the Statue of Liberty and teach their kids about the United States, go into a U.S. government database for the rest of their lives." "It's just insulting to the millions of good people who want to visit us," he said. "It treats international visitors to the U.S. like criminals." Harper noted that this policy could erode the "goodwill that the United States enjoys in the world, meaning we are less able to convince foreign governments to work with us on all kinds of very important issues." He added that "the findings of the House bill recite a 56,000,000, or 17 percent, drop in international visitors to the U.S. versus what was expected from 2001 to 2006 - some of which is attributable to the United States' harsh treatment of visitors." Harper said that even if 10 percent of this is caused by people being deterred by fingerprinting, the costs would be significant. "The Commerce Department estimates that these visitors would have spent $9.8 billion (valued in 2007 dollars) in the U.S." At that loss in revenue, he said the costs of the program would not outweigh the benefits of catching "the average document fraudster, ID fraudster, and immigration violator." As a counterterrorism measure, Harper said the program would only work "if we knew in advance exactly which terrorists were coming into the country. But terrorists are fungible. A terrorist organization can select people to send to the U.S. that have no prior participation in terrorism, people who can pass through" the scanners. Geoff Freeman, executive director of the Discover America Partnership, noted that while he thinks the program is "reasonable, we must also recognize that the 10-fingerscan technology may be perceived as a barrier to entry." "We must balance this and other barriers with clear communications and a welcoming message. The Travel Promotion Act would do just that, and Congress should pass it without delay," Freeman added. But Harper said, "I'm not sure that's the solution." "Why spend this money to make people feel better about us when we could make people feel better about us by spending less money," he said, adding that the program "doesn't significantly add to our protections, given the costs, so we should drop it." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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