Asahi: US-VISIT database riddled with mistakes: 38% of entries

mytest

Forwarded by a friend. So much for the effectiveness of the US-VISIT system the current Japanese NJ fingerprinting regime is modeled upon. First the source of the article (the table of contents), then the article with pertinent sections underlined. The article, btw, has long been unavailable online at Asahi.com. No wonder. Which is why I had to wait until I got this source. Arudou Debito

======================================
AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO
PUBLIC AFFAIRS SECTION
OFFICE OF TRANSLATION AND MEDIA ANALYSIS
INQUIRIES: 03-3224-5360
INTERNET E-MAIL ADDRESS: otmatokyo@state.gov
DAILY SUMMARY OF JAPANESE PRESS
November 21, 2007

INDEX:
(1) US needs to see progress in nuclear, abduction issues for N. Korea delisting: Bush [Sankei] 2
(2) Fukuda diplomacy takes first step toward “synergy”: Premier Wen reacts favorably [Asahi] 3
(3) Leaders of Japan, China, South Korea play up friendly mood, laying aside pending issues [Nikkei] 4
(4) Nukaga treated by Mitsubishi [Akahata] 6
(5) Editorial: Do we want to entrust the compilation of the state budget to Finance Minister Nukaga? [Asahi] 6
(6) Ruling, opposition parties to find way to reach agreement on bills [Asahi] 7
(7) US N-flattop unsettles local host communities [Tokyo Shimbun] 9
(8) US system of screening visitors: mistakes, contradictions found in 38% of those cited on monitoring list [Asahi] 10
(9) Policy watch: Face up to the economy slipping [Sankei] 11
(10) TOP HEADLINES 13
(11) EDITORIALS 13
(12) Political Cartoon 15
** Next Daily Summary will be issued on November 26. **

EXCERPT

(8) US system of screening visitors: mistakes, contradictions found in 38% of those cited on monitoring list

ASAHI (Page 2) (Excerpts)
November 19, 2007

Arriving foreign visitors form a long line at the immigration section at John F Kennedy Airport in New York to have their fingerprints taken from the index finger of each hand. Visitors have to wait for more than one hour when a number of flights arrive.

The US-visit system was introduced in 2004. The system is almost the same as Japan’s. Anna Hinken, an officer of the US Department of Homeland Security, proudly said: “We have rejected the entry of more than 2,000 persons who were considered a security risk since the system was introduced.”

But a US government agency poses questions about the system’s technology and credibility. This July, the US General Accounting Office criticized the US-visit system as seriously fragile in view of information control. He pointed out the possibility that personal data, including fingerprint data, might be altered or copied by someone from the outside due to insufficient security measures.

In September, an auditor of the Justice Department emphasized how inaccurate US blacklists are. The auditor said that as a result of a sampling check of the terrorism-affiliates included in a monitoring list, mistakes or contradictions were found in 38% of those checked, with the names of some terror suspects left out of the list or innocent persons appearing on it.

The monitoring list was compiled by integrating those of such government agencies as the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration, and the list is not open to the public. As of April this year, the number of those listed was 700,000. The number reportedly increases by 20,000 per month.

American Civil Liberties Union member Barry Steinhardt said: “There should not be so many terrorists. The list is unreliable. In addition, since the list is classified and not publicized, it is impossible to check how effectively it has worked to prevent terrorism.”

The monitoring list has also affected civic life. There are cases in which citizens unrelated to terrorism appeared on the list or in which a person who has the same family and personal name as a certain suspect was stopped at an airport security check.

The US-visit system also tends to give travelers an unpleasant impression about the nation.
ENDS

4 comments on “Asahi: US-VISIT database riddled with mistakes: 38% of entries

  • D. Jeff Dionne says:

    “So much for the effectiveness of the US-VISIT system the current Japanese NJ fingerprinting regime is modeled upon”

    Actually, this I think, misses a large part of the problem with the MoJ’s program. The collection of information is an invasion of privacy which is bad enough. But when the information that is used to validate and compare that information is inaccurate, it’s a safety issue. What happens when MoJ compares someone’s information with an inaccurate third party database and gets a false “Positive”? When someone coming to Japan is incensed by this treatment and is put on a list because they complain or refuse to give biometric data… what happens when they then try to enter (or return to!) the US?

    Reply
  • Japan has America’s list of names, Japan adds names to the list as well, all the personal info goes to Accenture, an offshore corporation that once lost personal and banking info for the entire state of Ohio. This outfit will just use what they have to build an international “undesirables” list. Have you ever send twenty bucks to Greenpeace or been on their mailing list? That info may already be in Accenture’s database. Japan considers Greenpeace a terrorist group. So, you get stopped at Narita, forcibly fingerprinted and added to the list, deported. Forget about your family in Japan, forget about ever leaving flying out of Aussie again, mate! Could this happen? Why not?

    Reply
  • Andrew Smallacombe says:

    Of course, the GOJ will respond with their usual hubris that the Japanese system will be much more technologically advanced and that data loss and mistakes will not happen.

    Reply
  • America the Unwelcoming
    The United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined amid a tourist boom.

    By Fareed Zakaria
    NEWSWEEK
    Updated: 1:23 PM ET Nov 17, 2007
    As an immigrant, I’ve always loved Thanksgiving for all the corniest reasons. It’s a distinctly American holiday, secular and inclusive, focused on food, family and gratitude. But the one Thanksgiving tradition I try strenuously to avoid is travel. For those of you who must do it—and that’s 27 million people this year—brace yourselves for massive delays and frayed tempers. President Bush announced a few measures to ease congestion, describing this week as “a season of dread for too many Americans.” I only wish he would keep in mind that for foreigners now traveling to America, the dread is far more acute, and it’s lasted far longer than a few days in November.

    Every American who has a friend abroad has heard some story about the absurd hassle and humiliation of entering or exiting the United States. But these pale in comparison to the experience of foreigners who commit minor infractions. A tourist from New Zealand, Rick Giles, mistakenly overstayed his visa in America by a few days and found himself summarily arrested for six weeks earlier this fall. Treaty obligations say his country’s embassy should have been informed of the arrest, but it wasn’t. A German visitor, Valeria Vinnikova, overstayed her visa by a couple of days and tried to remedy the situation—so that she could spend more time with her fiancé, the Dartmouth College squash coach. Instead she was handcuffed and had her feet shackled, then was carted off to be imprisoned. She now faces deportation and a 10-year ban on entering the United States. (Thanks to AndrewSullivan.com for drawing attention to these.)

    According to the Commerce Department, the United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined in the midst of a global tourism boom. And this is not about Arabs or Muslims. The number of Japanese visiting the United States declined from 5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million last year. The numbers have begun to increase, but by 2010 they’re still projected to be 19 percent below 2000 levels. During this same span (2000–2010), global tourism is expected to grow by 44 percent.

    The most striking statistic involves tourists from Great Britain. These are people from America’s closest ally, the overwhelming majority of them white Anglos with names like Smith and Jones. For Brits, the United States these days is Filene’s Basement. The pound is worth $2, a 47 percent increase in six years. And yet, between 2000 and 2006, the number of Britons visiting America declined by 11 percent. In that same period British travel to India went up 102 percent, to New Zealand 106 percent, to Turkey 82 percent and to the Caribbean 31 percent. If you’re wondering why, read the polls or any travelogue on a British Web site. They are filled with horror stories about the inconvenience and indignity of traveling to America.

    For many, the trials begin even before they arrive. In a world of expedited travel, getting a visa to enter the United States has become a laborious process. It takes, on average, 69 days in Mumbai, 65 days in São Paolo and 44 days in Shanghai simply to process a request. It’s no wonder that quick business trips to America are a thing of the past. Business travel to the United States declined by 10 percent between 2004 and 2005 (the most recent data available), while similar travel to Europe increased by 8 percent. Discover America, a travel-industry-funded organization that tries to boost tourism, estimates that the 17 percent overall decline in tourism since 9/11 has cost America $94 billion in lost tourist spending, 200,000 jobs and $16 billion in tax revenues.

    The administration and Congress say the right things, have passed a few measures to improve matters and keep insisting that the problem has been solved. But the data and loads of anecdotal evidence suggest otherwise. The basic problem remains: no bureaucrat wants to be the person who lets in the next terrorist. As a result, when one spots any irregularity—no matter how minor—the reflex is to stop, question, harass, arrest and deport. If tens of thousands of foreigners are upset, so what? But if one day a jihadist manages to slip in, woe to the person who stamped his passport. The incentives are badly skewed.

    In his 2003 book “Courage Matters,” Sen. John McCain writes, “Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist. It’s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave.” He added what seemed like a sound rule of thumb: “Watch the terrorist alert and when it falls below yellow, go outside again.”

    Except that since 9/11, the alert has never dropped below yellow (which means an “elevated” level of risk from a terrorist attack). At airports, we have been almost permanently at orange—”high risk,” or the second highest level of alertness. Yet the Department of Homeland Security admits that “there continues to be no credible information at this time warning of an imminent threat to the homeland.” The department’s “strategic threat perspective … is that we are in a period of increased risk.” What is this “strategic perspective?” Is it the same as the “gut feeling” that Secretary Michael Chertoff cited when he warned, in July, that we were likely to be attacked during the summer? Or is it a bureaucratic mind-set, the technical term for which is CYA?

    URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/70991

    Reply

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