| privacy 2004-02-24 |
| The Brazilian government has made permanent the requirement that visiting Americans be fingerprinted and photographed. It was imposed as retaliation by a judge who was offended by new U.S. immigration procedures that he characterized as Nazi-like.
While American visitors to Brazil will continue to endure the same processing that Brazilian visitors face when they enter the United States, new rules put in place Tuesday call for immediately installing electronic fingerprinting equipment and Web cameras to speed the process. In a concession to U.S. diplomatic objections, Americans no longer will be called out of the lines of visitors awaiting approval to enter Brazil, made to stand separately and laboriously processed. The new rules also permit Brazil's Federal Police, who enforce immigration laws, to waive the fingerprinting and photographing of U.S. cruise-ship passengers if Brazilian port facilities can't handle their processing. |
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