America fingerprints all foreigners entering the country.

This is part of the war on terror.

In 2005 a study was published showing that the $10 billion dollars system that had been put in place to fingerprint foreigners didn’t work. The problem? Well, people with worn down fingerprints could not be accurately scanned. (Supposedly the chance of inaccuracy was about 50%, but I mean what kind of random sample were they using?) As a result, a determined individual could thwart the system.

Yesterday, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff stated that America would be switching to a new system in which all 10 fingers are now scanned. Here’s the link. Mr. Chertoff did not mention the 2005 study, but surely these changes were a result of that study.

Now, what’s amazing is Mr. Chertoff sites the previous system (which only scanned two index fingers) as having been a rave success. In his own words:

“Since we’ve begun collecting biometrics in 2000, and that was just the two prints, we’ve stopped almost 2,000 criminals and immigration violators based on their fingerprints alone.”

First, what’s that mean stopped 2000 criminals. You mean lead to 2000 arrests followed by convictions? Or 2000 people apprehended, but over half never convicted? Or what?

Anyway, as we know the system cost about $10 billion dollars that means the system cost $5,000,000 per stopped criminal. Pretty expensive, I’d say. (Of course, the $10 billion price tag doesn’t include training and implementation and electricity and waiting time and so on and so forth.)

Worse, Mr. Chertoff sites three handpicked examples of who these 2000 people are. Does he name any terrorists? Nope. Not a one. He mentions someone who was supposedly selling drugs, another person who was helping “illegal” workers come into the country, and an “illegal” alien.

$1,000,000 per person and no mention of any stopped terrorists. That’s a success? If you’re a bureaucrat, I guess so.

Something else to recall, the fingerprint system would not have stopped any of the 9/11 terrorists as they all entered the country legally.

Your fingerprint is part of your person. It’s something very private. It might not feel like a strip search every time you dish it out, but then again maybe it should. America should stop fingerprinting foreigners. The result is that Americans are now being forced to dish out their own fingerprints more often now when they travel abroad.