My husband, a German, has been putting his fingers on the scanners when coming in to visit my family for nearly two decades - turnabout is fair play, I suppose...
It's unfortunate that the whole world is becoming more and more closed off. It feels like eventually we are all going to be locked into the country of our birth, with no hope of traveling somewhere else for a better life.
I won't say the governmental fingerprint DB is great for liberty, but in the grand scheme of things, it's largely inconsequential.
Case in point: South Korea. It has the total fingerprint DB of every adult citizen. Has been so for decades. Doesn't really affect people's freedom except in the abstract sense of "I don't like it when the government knows too much about me" way. Didn't even stop citizens from organizing mass protests when our president was stupid enough to declare martial law last year.
There are usual suspects that pose much bigger threats to democracy: things like income inequality, failing education, social network doing its things, media colluding with mega corporations, the usual stuff. Fingerprints may make a nice Hollywood SF thriller but that's about it.
It's inconsequential until it isn't. All of the other threats you mention are still threats, but if a government has a database of every resident's fingerprints and decided to use this to arrest every person who could be traced to a protest venue, a reasonable person would very quickly change their mind.
The way I see it, a government not having my fingerprints creates one more barrier to possible tyrannical actions like this and is thus a good thing.
Yes, we know the U.S. has done this since 2004 (and so have several other countries, especially in Asia). There's nowhere that I know of that has an organized lobby for foreigners' rights. If there were, I would join it.
(I mean, Ed Hasbrouck has been campaigning against travel surveillance and heightened use of ID for many years, so we have, like, one person!)
One problem is that when governments get together to talk about data and travel, they mostly end up negotiating ways to collect and exchange more data about travelers!
Its basically access logs and authentication for living people to a country. Its not a matter of if this will happen, It is a matter of when and how well it is executed.
I had my fingerprints taken entering the US pre-9/11 as a kid on a holiday with family. Wasn't any scanners back then. Good way to make visitors feel like criminals.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 34.5 ms ] threadCase in point: South Korea. It has the total fingerprint DB of every adult citizen. Has been so for decades. Doesn't really affect people's freedom except in the abstract sense of "I don't like it when the government knows too much about me" way. Didn't even stop citizens from organizing mass protests when our president was stupid enough to declare martial law last year.
There are usual suspects that pose much bigger threats to democracy: things like income inequality, failing education, social network doing its things, media colluding with mega corporations, the usual stuff. Fingerprints may make a nice Hollywood SF thriller but that's about it.
The way I see it, a government not having my fingerprints creates one more barrier to possible tyrannical actions like this and is thus a good thing.
This new rule applies to ALL travelers coming into the Schengen area, not just Americans.
(I mean, Ed Hasbrouck has been campaigning against travel surveillance and heightened use of ID for many years, so we have, like, one person!)
One problem is that when governments get together to talk about data and travel, they mostly end up negotiating ways to collect and exchange more data about travelers!