ArticlesI will be travelling to the United States soon, for the first time in many years. I am surprised at the strength of my objections to one small inconvenience being foisted upon me during my journey.
Let me start, as is my wont, by talking about an apparently unrelated topic.
The Australian Interactive Gambling Act 2001 bans (with many exceptions) online casinos from advertising or providing services to Australians.
It bans foreign web-sites from targeting Australians, but as you might imagine, there is a limit to how effective that can be.
Remarkably, what it doesn’t ban is Australian web-sites targeting non-Australians. I consider that to be immoral.
You can debate whether or not gambling is a legitimate pastime. You can debate whether or not it has a damaging effect on society. You can debate whether it is appropriate for the government to restrict people’s liberties. (Actually, you can go and do it in another forum; it isn’t the point of this article, today.)
The point is, whatever the outcome of that debate, the answer is the same whether or not the gamblers are Australian citizens.
The idea that “gambling is evil, so we should protect our citizens, but gambling is profitable, so we should make money targeting the citizens of other countries” is hypocritical and morally irresponsible.
The people of the USA – like the people of Australia – are suspicious of their government infringing on their privacy. They are suspicious of government databases collecting unnecessary information. They are suspicious of giving up essential liberties to purchase a little temporary safety.
The balance here has clearly swung away from liberty over the past five years, but even still, the US government would find it very difficult to push a campaign to collect biometric information from every citizen in the country. I do not believe the people would stand for it. I do not believe that the political parties would dare suggest it.
Given this position, I find the current policy of collecting fingerprints and photographs from every non-citizen entering the USA to be hypocritical and morally irresponsible in the same manner as the Australian Interactive Gambling Act.
I find it especially affronting that there is little attempt to limit the level of privacy intrusion – for example, as a bare minimum, disposing of the data when the traveller leaves the country.
Researching the topic, I found their privacy impact statement to be toothless. I was not reassured that only hundreds or thousands of US government employees would have access to the data. I was not reassured that the data would only be used according to the law of the US government. I can confidently predict that, between now and my death, there will be US governments who pass laws that I cannot agree with. I am handing over my valuables to an organisation that I don’t trust, with big blank spaces on the contract.
I had secretly hoped that I would not feel the need to travel to the USA before they dropped this requirement. I don’t feel strongly enough over this issue to refuse to travel via the USA, but it is making me a bit grumpy about the travel.
Comment by Alastair on November 29, 2006
Julian, without disagreeing with you I would point out that it is very common for governments to discriminate between citizens and visitors. Citizens can vote, go to school, etc, but these privileges are not extended to visitors for various reasons. So it might argued that the privilege of anonymity (that is, *not* having your biometric information on file) is apparently one that US citizens keep for themselves and do not extend to visitors.
But that’s not accurate, because it relies on the false assumption that fingerprinting is not already used on US citizens. In fact, fingerprinting is commonly used for drivers licenses in some (most?) states, gun licenses, and other government interactions. So if you make the (admittedly gross) assumption that most visitors will be driving cars, the fingerprinting requirement simply brings them up to parity with most US citizens who drive.
So I object to the policy of fingerprinting immigrants because
a) The practice is of such questionable utility,
b) It is at odds with the inclusive and accepting history of the country (“give me your huddled masses”),
c) There is not the accountability that the data will be kept private and very little recourse in the event that it is misused, and
d) It just *feels* bad.
Comment by Sunny Kalsi on November 29, 2006
I would like to make a distinction between the interactive gambling act and fingerprinting that you overlook. It is the country’s job to look after the country’s citizens, and those citizens alone. If a large chunk of Australian funds were spent on feeding the hungry in a starving African nation, for example, most Australians would think that it’s not a good use of the money, leaving morality aside, for the following practical reasons:
1) It is none of your business, and feeding others has a similar effect to killing others in the sense that you’re taking on a bigger role than what people wish of you. After all, the country’s leaders should be responsible enough to work through it on their own.
2) You may well be feeding a corrupt government. Even if you did get the money to the right place, this simply eases the burden on the government in that country, which may get even more corrupt as a result of your actions.
etc.
The main point is, it’s not “core business” for a government to be worrying about other countries. It should expend effort on keeping it’s own country in good nick, that’s hard enough. Therefore, when writing a law for gambling, make sure you protect your own citizens, and don’t create extra work. If another country asks you to stop an Australian gambling website, and you’re on good terms with that country, it may be advisable to assist them, but you shouldn’t have laws enforcing this stuff, because presumably other countries will have these laws.
Further to this, another country may well have decided that gambling is fine. Creating laws that prevent Aussie websites from competing in these markets is morally egotistical. “I won’t let my people give you what your people want (and think is perfectly fine) because I think it’s wrong.” The fact that it will actually bring in money to your country is a side-effect, and even if no actual money was made, it wouldn’t matter. It’s really just a separation of concerns.
By contrast, fingerprinting foreigners requires effort to purposely make life difficult for people coming into your country. Like you’ve said, you’ll be tied to whatever the country wants to do with your private data without your consent or your ability to do anything about it (short of starting a war or something). Further to this, if you think about the separation of concerns above, America really shouldn’t be interested in protecting people who aren’t their citizens, so won’t really do anything about keeping their private details private.
Fingerprints may be stolen or leaked and may be used to gain access to a variety of things in different countries, and America has no incentive to care. That’s the scary thing.