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asterjolly, that's a really interesting point, and it makes this seem to be much less of a tit-for-tat action targeted *specifically* at the fingerprinting. In fact, this history of Brazil's actions as regards US citizens' visas, illegal immigration into the US from Brazil, etc., would likely make for an interesting story if the media could hold the attention of the average viewer long enough to tell it.
Personally, I'm wondering why we even bothered to implement this scheme in the ass-backwards way we did, with the list of countries for whom the fingerprinting/photography doesn't apply.
I mean, even if we have arrangements with the governments of those countries, and trust them to nab bad guys on their end, the repeated bungles and near-misses involving international air travel over the holidays should demonstrate that our border security needs to be handled, well, at our borders.
Also, it is just like our current administration to either not think about or not care about the fact that the message we *appear* to be sending is "we're worried about terrorism! from, uh, basically just from the brown people." I can't wait for al-Qaeda to start hiring anglo-looking operatives and giving them fake French, Swiss, or German passports. OH GNOS! OUR CAREFULLY-CONSIDERED SECURITY PLAN IS USELESS!!!!1!!oneone
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