>Hi,
> All this sounds innocent until you get the wrong people in control i.e. a change of idealogy in government. Just ask some of people from eastern europe back 30-40 years ago, their views are totally different to yours as they have lived through it.
>
>As I said to John, it is just another step toward "Big Brother".
>

If you get the wrong people in control ( or for that matter ever give up too much 'control' to government ) you 've got bigger problems than that. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot didn't need no steenkin' fingerprints.

Having fingerprints to correctly determine identity is not in itself any more intrusive than a photo id - just more accurate. You are in a lot more danger from people who would find that problematic than you are from your government - or ours - knowing who you really are. Would be a heck of thing to find out you were wanted in the US for blowing up a building based on 'your' passport wouldn't it?


>>I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. My prints are probably already on file there, as well as the UK and another dozen countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. So what? I show a photo ID to get on an airplane - or for that matter to cash a check. And a passport is supposed to be a definite form of id. Unfortunately, passports and diplomatic pouches are a 'loophole' that terrorists and criminals have learned to exploit. Why do you think anybody cared when Mad Mike Hoare tried to take the Seychelles or there was a coup in Greneda?
>>
>>Unless you take the position a nation has no right to restrict access to crossing its borders, what kind of identification is required is just a detail.
>>
>>I think being able to identify someone accurately to be a protection. If someone enters Australia with a passport claiming to be me I'd be very pleased if a fingerprint, iris scan or DNA sample proved it wasn't.
>>
>>Honest people can't imagine why some security measures are taken, but people with responsibility for that kind of stuff lay awake at night because they know just how big the holes are. In the late 90s I could have pointed you to people who could have provided a perfectly real Belgian passport for under $5k.
>>
>>Violation of basic rights of freedom? Governments were very good at violating peoples freedom long before they knew about fingerprints. I sympathize with the cause, but IMO that isn't the place to draw the line.
>>
>>>Hi,
>>> One other thing bothers me with the US, what would you think if, to be allowed into our country as a tourist you had to be fingerprinted at the point of entry. This currently is the case upon entry into the USA.
>>>
>>>It is a violation of basic rights of freedom.
>>>
>>>Your thoughts.
>>>
>>>
>>>>I thank you for alerting us to this. As you know, under the repressive Bush/Cheney dictatorship the news is censored here and this kind of evidence of the Police State we live under doesn't get out. And even if it did, most Americans would be too stupid to realize that this news article is significant and represents and an archtypal example of the kind of repression that is ubiquitous in our society.
>>>>
>>>>If I can sneak out after curfew and avoid the helicopters and police dogs I hope to be able to make to the Canadian consulate to seek asylum in a more enlightened society where this kind of atrocity could never take place.
>>>>
>>>>Pray for me ...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080209/ap_on_fe_st/odd_lousy_lawn