U.S. fingerprinting everybody now

April 2, 2004 D. H. McKee

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Washington has reversed course and will require millions of travellers from 27 countries to be fingerprinted and photographed before entering the United States.

The change affects citizens from 27 previously-exempt countries, including close U.S. allies like Great Britain, Japan and Australia. Up to now, visitors from those and other countries had been allowed to travel within the U.S. for 90 days without a visa.

Starting Sept. 30, however, travellers from those countries will be fingerprinted and photographed when they enter the U.S. through any of 115 airports and 14 seaports.

The decision to change security was made after Bush administration officials determined that the so-called “visa-waiver countries” wouldn’t be able to meet an October deadline for machine-readable passports containing biometric information, including fingerprint and iris identification features. Such features make documents virtually impossible to counterfeit.

Canadian and Mexican travellers remain exempt from the system.

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As a guy who occasionally curates art shows and wrangles artists together, I often have to edit and post artist bios, profile pictures, and artwork images. This can be a problem, since many artists and writers aren’t used to selling themselves. Artists rarely know how to present their art for display in a brochure, and writers aren’t used to writing about themselves.

Writers often treat the bio like it’s an interview or something. Maybe like they’re having a conversation with you, the reader. While it may work sometimes, the most common way to write a bio is to write in the 3rd person.

I’m like those writers, and I’m talking to you directly, unlike the common way to do a bio. You should see my About page. It makes sense to me, since this is a bit which describes my blog’s website. When I get famous enough that I don’t have time to talk to you, I’ll have an intern write everything in 3rd person. Until then, you get to talk to me.

Like blogs of old, this one is a personal document of the comings and goings of me. Articles I’ve written, links I’ve posted, videos I liked, etc. Here, a first-person perspective is the way to go, at least for now. So, this is my site. I’m D. H. McKee, a sometimes artist, sometimes writer. Mostly just a guy on the internet.