US airports have begun digitally fingerprinting visitors, but for some it's a security measure too far, writes Ian Kilroy in Boston.
Muhammad Atta will always haunt Logan Airport. Here, clean-shaven and wearing a crisp blue business shirt, he boarded the flight he would pilot into Tower One of the World Trade Centre. The plane that took down the second tower also took off from this Boston hub. No wonder that in Logan - more than any other US airport - security is now something of an obsession.
That obsession reached new heights this week as "US-Visit" came into effect in 115 airports and 14 ship ports across the US. We've all seen biometrics used in Bond movies, where access is gained to a safe or some such by scanning a fingerprint or iris to verify identity. Now for many travellers a biometrics scan will be necessary to gain access to the United States. It's Bond fiction come to life - and while many at Logan supported the new security measures, others were shaken, not stirred, by the new moves.
"The security guys weren't mean or anything, but it scared the hell out of me," said Syrian national Dr Eyad Mayani, who was detained for two hours on entering Logan this week. "I think they've definitely gone way too far. I don't think they're tackling the problem the right way."
What upsets Mayani and others are Homeland Security's new requirements that most visitors to the US now have to prove their identity with a fingerprint scan when they arrive. Unless travelling from Europe, Canada, Japan or Singapore under the visa waiver programme, all visitors to the US will have to consent to having a fingerprint scan and digital photograph taken by US authorities. The information garnered will be checked against criminal records and terrorist wanted lists and kept on file by the US for future use. Only US citizens, Green Card holders, permanent US residents, the old, the young, diplomats and visa waiver tourists will be exempt. Everyone else will be scanned and photographed, or refused admittance to the US if they refuse to comply.
Like most people in Logan this week, Michael Cairnduff from Co Tyrone was broadly supportive of the new measures, collectively known as "US-Visit" (short for "US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology").
"When you look at what happened to the Twin Towers I don't think you can say this security is unjustified," says Cairnduff. However, he worries that it has "unfortunate consequences for civil liberties" and could act as a disincentive to visit the US, "especially if they can't get people through the system quick enough".
But speedy processing seems not to be a problem this week in Boston. Homeland Security's guess that the system adds about 15 seconds to each passenger's processing time seems to be borne out in practice, as study visa holder Orla O'Mahoney from Ennis attests.
"I got my fingerprints taken in Shannon and it was fine. You had to just press the index finger of each hand down on a little pad - and they took your picture as well. It was fast and it didn't really bother me," she says.
Beyza and Ali, arriving from Istanbul, are also broadly supportive of the new measures. "This is necessary," says Beyza, "We gave our fingerprints getting our visas at the consulate in Istanbul, and we had to give our prints again here. Security is never too much," she says.
According to Bill Strassberger of Homeland Security, 50 of the 211 US embassies and consulates overseas have the new fingerprinting technology. Prints are taken when issuing visas and taken again to confirm identity when landing in the US. The scheme will soon be extended so that prints are taken again on departure, and within two years all 211 overseas US visa-issuing posts will require fingerprints for visas, including the US Embassy in Dublin.
Strassberger says that in the few days that it has been up and running, US-Visit has mainly thrown up simple cases of visa fraud - with one interesting case in Atlanta, where a criminal was caught travelling into the US using her twin's stolen passport. The woman's prints taken at Atlanta airport didn't match those of her identical twin, who had been issued a visa.
What this case makes clear is that US-Visit is about a lot more than just preventing terrorism. This is also about tracking and catching criminals, keeping records on immigrants, building up a database of the movements of all who cross a US border. US-Visit is a total tracking system that, according to Strassberger, will soon be extended to everybody coming in or going out of the US - including everyone who is currently exempt from the new system.
It is a development that worries some, such as German national Mark Lever, arriving in Logan this week from Frankfurt.
"The problem with any country with a powerful government is that they can abuse the data they have. They've [the US government] abused data in the past and could easily do it again now," says Lever.
Korean citizen Hyung-Do Kim shares some of Lever's concerns: "I got terribly upset when I heard about this first." But, like many travellers, Kim also sees the rationale behind the measures. "I still don't feel good about it, but I guess it's something they have to do," he adds.
Anyone, like Kim, who gives their fingerprint will have it cross-checked against a US database of criminals' prints. According to Homeland Security, they do not have access to foreign databases of fingerprints, and the Garda Síochána has confirmed that neither US Homeland Security nor the visa-issuing US Embassy has access to their database of Irish criminals' prints.
What may be of concern, however, is the possible margin of error - anything from one in 10,000 to one in 1,000,000, according to Biometrics technology supply company, Biometrics Direct. With thousands upon thousands of people travelling to the US every day, that's a lot of possible "false negatives". How many people run into problems because of the technology's margin of error is yet to be seen. That perfectly innocent people will be denied entry seems likely.
But, as many people landing in Logan Airport are saying this week, that is a small price to pay if the technology generally works and errors are quickly remedied. But will US-Visit protect us from terrorism? Many at Logan have their doubts.
"I don't see how taking fingerprints will help secure flights," says Mark Lever. Orla O'Mahoney believes "if terrorists are going to come in they're going to come in, fingerprints or not". The fact that the alleged September 11th "20th hijacker", Zacarias Moussaoui, was travelling as a French citizen means that he and others like him might escape under the new system - European nationals being exempt under the visa waiver programme.
The fact that the majority of fingerprints are currently only taken once individuals have landed in the US is also a flaw of the system as currently applied. Muhammad Atta had no intention of ever landing on his last trip, and any future Muhammad Atta boarding a plane outside the US may have crashed his plane long before passing through a biometrics check on US soil.
But Bill Strassberger says that these problems will be cleared up as the system is expanded. Soon even visa waiver people will be checked - but that still leaves the problem of terrorists intending to crash planes unchecked by the new measures. Shannon Airport is a rare example where people pass through US immigration checks before setting foot in North America.
All that aside, any al-Qaeda operative with a clean criminal record could slip through the net, biometrics or no biometrics. As we learned over many years in Northern Ireland, sometimes the most unlikely person is the terrorist, and that type of person is almost impossible to stop.