A foreigner being fingerprinted at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport

WASHINGTON, January 5 (IslamOnline.net and News Agencies) – The United States began Monday, January 5, fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors arriving at 115 U.S. airports and 14 major seaports as part of a new multi-million security program.

Top U.S. officials headed to airports across the country to help launch the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology – or U.S.-VISIT, including Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge.

U.S.–VISIT will record the entry and exit of an estimated 24 million foreign visitors who enter the U.S. mainland annually on tourist, student and business visas, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Citizens from unnamed 28 countries, mostly in Europe, are exempt, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the new state-of-the-art identification program.

The program allows security officials to instantly identify individual's criminal activity on an integrated digital database.

All U.S. visas and passports will eventually include photos and fingerprints -- called "biometric identifiers".

Self-service kiosks are also proposed, where foreigners will be required to 'check out' of the country before stepping on a plane. Visitors overstaying their visas may not be allowed back into the U.S.

A similar program will be launched at 50 U.S. border crossings by the end of 2005.

"Inkless fingerprints and digital photos will add 10 to 15 seconds to the immigration entry interview, which now takes 60 to 90 seconds," Kimberly Weissman, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, told AFP

"We've been supporting this change. We think it's a cleaner process," added Ralph Tragale, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the Newark and John F. Kennedy international airports.

Violating Privacy

Civil libertarians and immigrants said the biometric identification system may be an invasion of privacy.

"It doesn't seem likely that we're going to catch any bad guys through this program, but it is likely that a lot of immigrants are going to get caught up in the bureaucracy," Michele Waslin, a spokeswoman for La Raza, an advocacy group for U.S. Latinos, told AFP.

"It does appear to be a step toward creating a national registry," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program. "It is a tool for creating a surveillance society."

Travel industry analysts also warn that U.S.-VISIT will have negative implications, as the steady tightening of security on international flights will lead to increase in flight delays and cancellations.

The 380-million-dollar program is seen as replacing a recent program that primarily targeted Muslim males from Muslim countries, particularly the Middle East.

The U.S. administration scrapped last December the controversial visitor-registration program introduced in 2002 -- Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS) -- that drew complaints from civil liberties groups.

And this is the kind negative repercussions that Tim Edgar, of the American Civil Liberties Union, spoke about on the BBC's World Today radio program.

"You have to look at the costs of these policies… for example, the (2002) special registration program resulted in 13 000 orders of deportation on people who tried to register with the government," said Edgar.

"That kind of response can cause problems with governments around the world that we are trying to have a better relationship with."

Shockwaves

But it seems as if the new program has sent shockwaves across several countries, which decided to give similar treatment to U.S. visitors.

Brazil has made formal complaints and started fingerprinting and photographing all U.S. citizens arriving at its main international airports, reported the BBC News Online.

France and Germany are also planning to fingerprint visa applicants in their countries.

The program takes effect after the United States raised its terror alert in December to "orange" the second-highest level. Intelligence indicated that Al-Qaeda was planning to hijack airliners for a repeat of its September 11 attacks, in which 3,000 people were killed.

Seven flights headed for the United States -- three from France, two from Britain and two from Mexico -- were canceled between December 24 and January 2 due to security fears.

Since then the U.S. has placed armed police on some airliners and said that any foreign airliner entering U.S. airspace could be required to have armed police on board.