Strange Customs

‘AS anyone who has flow into the United States will know, the experience of entering the land of the free is as pleasant as passing nitric acid.

Flipping Americans the finger

And now it’s set to get more fun. As the Guardian says, all arrivals to the States will be fingerprinted and photographed.

Unlucky travellers will then be blamed for every crime from the theft of a slice of pizza from a San Diego store to the murder of JFK.

The rest will be merely watched - or, as was the case with Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), allowed to bypass the process and be sent straight back home again.

But while you seethe and stare at the humourless gum-chewing drone who’s impinging on your civil liberties, you can wonder at the technology.

It’s truly amazing that the process doesn’t involve any ink. You simply stick your left index finger then your right index finger into a plastic scanning device.

“We have been taking finger scans of British nationals coming under the visa regime [those working in the US] since January, and we have not had any negative pushback from that,” says Bob Mocny, deputy director of the new Welcome To America scheme.

While we look up what “pushback” means, we wonder why it is that no-one has complained.

And why hundreds of Britons are walking around with one finger missing…’

Posted: 30th, September 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink