Time to Fingerprint American Tourists?

[UnderAGreySky]

American National caught trying to sneak Steak Knife on to Indian Plane

After David Headley, another American national is facing questions over terror. A sixty one-year-old American national created a stir at the Indira Gandhi International Airport early on Wednesday morning, the security forces detained him for carrying a knife blade concealed in shilajit, an Ayurvedic substance. The man, identified as Winston Marshall, was to board Qatar airways flight to Doha.

"When he was checking in at 3 am our Sub-Inspector at screening got suspicious of him and then his hand bag was physically searched but nothing was found then all the contents were scanned individually. Then an alloy weighing 500-550 gm was detected which looked like a knife. The alloy was broken and the blade was found," said Udayan Banerjee, DIG, CISF.

Initial investigations reveal:

* Marshall is not of American origin and converted to Islam some years ago
* He is from New York and had drug related offences against him
* He has a multiple-entry tourist visa
* He travelled to Pakistan via Wagah
* He had travelled to Dhaka from Kolkata by road

So, after the American David Hedy Headley and Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana, are we not justified in fingerprinting North American and European travellers to India?

I don't see it happening, though, but it would make for a decent paper trail for non-brown-skinned terrorists with western names doing recon outside potential terrorist targets. Maybe run them through Interpol or whatever if we know they have gone through suspected countries....

But most of all, and maybe this is childish of me, to thumb our nose at western countries - the US and the UK just two - that make us hand over our "biometrics" (oh, such a gentle word) in the name of security...

[Broomstick]

Turn about is fair play.

Personally, I'm not at all thrilled with fingerprinting everyone and all the security theater, but like I said, turn about is fair play. If we fingerprint your people, you should be able to fingerprint ours.

After all, Indian has come under terrorist attack much more recently than the US. They have just as much right to protect and safeguard their citizens as anyone else.

[Alferd Packer]

Brazil already does that, I believe. Back when US Customs started photographing every foreign traveler, Brazil decided to do the same...but only for Americans. At least, that's what they said they would do--who knows if they actually implemented it. It might make sense to simply have an international standard that participating countries could adhere to. That way, all persons of all nationalities could feel equally debased and violated when they go to the airport.

[Simon_Jester]

So, after the American David Hedy Headley and Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana, are we not justified in fingerprinting North American and European travellers to India?

I'd say that you have as much justification for doing that as we have for doing it to your travellers. Not very much, but we have no right to complain.

Brazil already does that, I believe. Back when US Customs started photographing every foreign traveler, Brazil decided to do the same...but only for Americans. At least, that's what they said they would do--who knows if they actually implemented it. It might make sense to simply have an international standard that participating countries could adhere to. That way, all persons of all nationalities could feel equally debased and violated when they go to the airport.

Nah. If only a few countries are doing it because "It protects our FREEDOM! HRUH!" then it makes sense to target travellers from those countries for harassment. You're trying to send a message: "Do not screw around with our citizens simply because they are brown and you are too pig-stupid to tell different groups of brown people apart." Of course, it may not work, but it's guaranteed to fail if you do it to everyone.