At the moment a lot of the security agents in the US are low trained, low payed employees. Train them better and make it more attractive for them to stay on their job so it will be possible to keep the experienced employees. That would probably help better than getting fingerprints and new passports.

Communication between the various security agencies could also be improved. The 9-11 hearings made clear that this is a mayor problem at least then and probably, but hopefully to a much lesser extent, now as well.

What does the US expect to achieve with fingerprinting and photographing people.

Maybe that in Miami Vice it is possible to recognise a fingerprint from a known (!) criminal in minutes, in the real world it takes longer. Possitively identifying a fingerprint can take hours if not days!

Unless everyone is to stay airside until the fingerprint has been identified, this is not going to stop any known (!) terrorists. And I don’t think they are going to let everyone wait till the fingerprint checks out ok.

Unknown terrorists will of course still get through. Regardless of how good biometric passports are.

The notion some have that once biometric passports are introduced this fingerprinting and photographing is repealed is probably incorrect. Until the introduction of biometric passports, the fingerprinting is useless. With the new passport you can finally confirm the identity of the holder with the passport using fingerprinting. The new passport will only make it more appealing to fingerprint people!

That is, of course, untill someone finds a way to make false biometric passports. That has happened with all previous documents of value, and will no doubt happen with biometric passports as well. It’s just a matter of time.

I think these methods are not worth the small improvement (if any) in safety. There are better ways to prevent terrorists from entering a country.

Arthur is right, the best one is from Dutch insurance company Delta Lloyd. You can find all their adds at this link. The one Arthur mentioned is called “Parade” and even caused a diplomatic incident with North Korea!

Also be sure to check out “Booming car”, “Zero Tolerance” and “Botsauto”.

http://www.deltalloyd.nl/dlnl/actueel_deltalloyd/reclame/

Scanners are not allowed. For most airlines cameras are allowed but can only be used when the fasten-seatbelt sign is off. For some airlines you can use the camera all the way.

What’s the difference between within- and beyond-perimeter?

yes, Andrew thinks there are a few f*cking idi0ts and therefore won’t return. Its a shame, but I can’t blame him either.

Things do seem to have calmed down a bit though over at the “busdrivers”.