Airport Security Measures Work

Via Venomous Kate, and James, at Outside The Beltway, we learn that the new security procedure requiring some visitors to the U.S. to be fingerprinted and photographed has already resulted in 30 criminals being caught.

NEWS.com.au reports:

In Washington, a senior US Homeland Security official said that during the first three days after US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology - or US-VISIT - was installed at 115 US airports, more than 83,000 international passengers had been photographed and fingerprinted.

"Among those we have had 30 criminal hits," Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson said.

Those apprehended includea Salvadoran national stopped at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York:

"When he presented his travel documents everything seemed fine but the biometric identification sounded a warning," he said.

"Turned out he had used false documents to enter the United States illegally 12 times in the past year and had committed some minor offences."

A Google search reveals that this story is not being reported by the U.S. media at all. There are numerous articles about the implementation of the new procedure. There also numerous stories about the negative foreign reaction. Including this Washington Times' article about Secretary of State Powell's defending the new procedure against Brazil's charge that it amounts to "Nazism."

As usual I agree with Kate when she observes:

If nothing else, the passengers themselves will prevent a repeat of 9/11.

I have a friend who is a flight attendant. She has said that a number of pilots have assured their crews that they would fly radical maneuvers to ensure evil doers can't take over another aircraft. Keep those seatbelts buckeled tight.