[ OUR OPINION ]
High-tech port security
makes country saferAN expensive but necessary security system aimed at identifying terrorism suspects arriving from abroad has been activated at Honolulu Airport and other international airports and sea ports around the country. The high-tech operation should be of little disturbance to Hawaii's international tourism and could even calm the nerves of visitors who might be wary of aviation-related terrorism.
THE ISSUE
The United States has begun fingerprinting and photographing foreigners entering the country at airports and sea ports.
Travelers from 27 countries where U.S. visas are not required for entry to the United States are exempt from the requirement. Those include Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Western European countries.
Visitors from other countries already must undergo U.S. Embassy interviews to acquire visas. Their submitting to digital index-finger scans and facial photographs should be no more than an inconvenience, taking only 15 seconds on average, according to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
An exit system in which departing visitors will have their index fingers scanned at self-service kiosks is being tested and is to be put into operation by the end of this year. Only then will the federal government be equipped to identify foreigners who have overstayed their visits and deny them future visas.
The technology of identifying people through biometrics -- characteristics such as faces, hand shapes and fingerprints -- has been around for years, but was deemed not to be worth the cost. That changed after Sept. 11, 2001, and Congress ordered the program to be installed.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, remains skeptical of the program, called US-VISIT, or U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology. In a report four months ago, the GAO called it "a risky undertaking because it is to support a critical mission, its scope is large and complex, it must meet a demanding implementation schedule and its potential cost is enormous." It is projected to cost $7.2 billion through the next decade.
Ridge is confident that it will be effective. In a pilot program at the Atlanta airport, the system screened 20,000 travelers and scored 21 "hits" on the FBI's criminal watch list, including people with prior convictions of rape, drugs and visa fraud, since mid-November.
The face recognition aspect of the system, focusing on about 30 features unaffected by expression or facial hair, is less reliable than the finger scan. Tests have shown that finger scans are identifiable in all but 5 percent of the subjects. Together, the two tests should be highly effective.
A similar biometric identifier system is planned at the 50 busiest land border crossings by the end of next year. That will be an improvement, but even all of this will fall short of keeping our nation's borders terrorproof.
