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America on Alert: New Customs Greet Many Foreign Visitors

Aired January 05, 2004 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Up first this hour, more on the brand new customs facing millions of non-American visitors to U.S. air and sea ports. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge personally introduced project U.S.-Visit to new arrivals this morning at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport right here in Atlanta. More than 100 other big airports are also on board, among them, Dulles International on the outskirts of Washington.
CNN's Bob Franken is there -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And of course Dulles International over the last week became the scene of quite a bit of apprehension when planes were stopped, et cetera, because of some security concerns. Interestingly, officials say that had this biometric program been in place, they might have been able to avoid some of the problems.

What biometrics does, we've hear the term now in this brave new world, what it does is it digitally comes up with impressions of the various body parts, in this particular case the fingers, which only an individual has. It's far advanced from the old fingerprint techniques.

As a matter of fact, I was trying it out just a short time ago. You use your index finger, as you can see. There is no smudge on there. It is the type of thing that will be greeting people from all but 28 countries who are on a waiver list, mostly European, and some of the other first world countries. They will be coming in. They will do a very brief scan, a fingerprint scan and then will have a digital picture taken.

No. 1, that will then be immediately matched to see if there are any sort of watch list. And of course then a permanent record will be kept to match against any sort of future efforts to steal identity. That's the name of it. It was begun in Atlanta. It has now spread to 115 airports today, as well as 14 sea ports, and it's going to expand more. And the pilot programs, which were conducted in Atlanta, Kyra, they had absolutely no problems, they said. In fact, they were able to catch some people who they would otherwise not have caught.

PHILLIPS: Bob.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MOCNY, DIR. OF ENTRY/EXIT PGMS.: We have been piloting this program over the past several weeks at many of our airports and it truly has been a success. During the pilot, U.S.-Visit matched 21 hits on the FBI's criminal watch list, including those with previous convictions for statutory rape, dangerous drugs, aggravated felonies and several cases of visa fraud. One of those caught with the U.S.- Visit system had entered the U.S. over 60 times in the past several years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: That is the type of -- the type of the event that is going to be avoided, according to officials. Officials have been told that with this new technology, they're going to be able to stay one step ahead of people who use aliases and the like. One step ahead of the type of person, officials point out, who got through during September 11 -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Bob, did you actually test out the system? Did you go through? And how long did it take? And did your information pop up there on the screen?

FRANKEN: Why were you screaming in my ear, Virginia?

PHILLIPS: All right. We had a little problem, obviously, with the IFB. Bob not really happy with his producer there. We are going to move on. Maybe answer that question a little later.

Now the new program to fingerprint and photograph most users or visitors, rather, to the U.S. is a little controversial. Dan Stein of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, calls it an excellent tool for helping to fight terrorists. Jeanne Butterfield of the American Immigration Lawyers Association says the program does not make us any safer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEAN BUTTERFIELD, IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSN.: There are more than 20 databases that need to be combined and correlated. And I think, as we've seen in recent days, our databases are woefully inadequate. We are mismatching names. We are declaring terrorist alerts for grandmas and little kids. And when you multiply that by the magnitude of what's going into effect today, I think we have the potential to actually do ourselves harm economically and with our allies and friends abroad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN STEIN, FAIR: And if we don't move forward with this, our society will never have the kind of border inspections procedures needed over the next 30 years to deal with the incredible crush of migration pressure from all over the world.

Where this is an age of modern mobility, people are on the move. Everybody who's used the Visit system is saying hey, this is easy. You know it's a quick fingerprint scan. People don't have any problem with it, with the technologies. They're comfortable using it. It takes only a couple of minutes. Yes, there's going to be some glitches when you first implement a system like this, but good grief, I mean this is -- at the least, this is what we can do in the wake of 9/11. There's so much more that needs to be done just on top of U.S.-Visit if we're ever going to make our immigration system secure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Stein and Butterfield debated this issue last hour right here on LIVE FROM.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 5, 2004 - 15:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Up first this hour, more on the brand new customs facing millions of non-American visitors to U.S. air and sea ports. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge personally introduced project U.S.-Visit to new arrivals this morning at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport right here in Atlanta. More than 100 other big airports are also on board, among them, Dulles International on the outskirts of Washington.
CNN's Bob Franken is there -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And of course Dulles International over the last week became the scene of quite a bit of apprehension when planes were stopped, et cetera, because of some security concerns. Interestingly, officials say that had this biometric program been in place, they might have been able to avoid some of the problems.

What biometrics does, we've hear the term now in this brave new world, what it does is it digitally comes up with impressions of the various body parts, in this particular case the fingers, which only an individual has. It's far advanced from the old fingerprint techniques.

As a matter of fact, I was trying it out just a short time ago. You use your index finger, as you can see. There is no smudge on there. It is the type of thing that will be greeting people from all but 28 countries who are on a waiver list, mostly European, and some of the other first world countries. They will be coming in. They will do a very brief scan, a fingerprint scan and then will have a digital picture taken.

No. 1, that will then be immediately matched to see if there are any sort of watch list. And of course then a permanent record will be kept to match against any sort of future efforts to steal identity. That's the name of it. It was begun in Atlanta. It has now spread to 115 airports today, as well as 14 sea ports, and it's going to expand more. And the pilot programs, which were conducted in Atlanta, Kyra, they had absolutely no problems, they said. In fact, they were able to catch some people who they would otherwise not have caught.

PHILLIPS: Bob.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MOCNY, DIR. OF ENTRY/EXIT PGMS.: We have been piloting this program over the past several weeks at many of our airports and it truly has been a success. During the pilot, U.S.-Visit matched 21 hits on the FBI's criminal watch list, including those with previous convictions for statutory rape, dangerous drugs, aggravated felonies and several cases of visa fraud. One of those caught with the U.S.- Visit system had entered the U.S. over 60 times in the past several years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: That is the type of -- the type of the event that is going to be avoided, according to officials. Officials have been told that with this new technology, they're going to be able to stay one step ahead of people who use aliases and the like. One step ahead of the type of person, officials point out, who got through during September 11 -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Bob, did you actually test out the system? Did you go through? And how long did it take? And did your information pop up there on the screen?

FRANKEN: Why were you screaming in my ear, Virginia?

PHILLIPS: All right. We had a little problem, obviously, with the IFB. Bob not really happy with his producer there. We are going to move on. Maybe answer that question a little later.

Now the new program to fingerprint and photograph most users or visitors, rather, to the U.S. is a little controversial. Dan Stein of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, calls it an excellent tool for helping to fight terrorists. Jeanne Butterfield of the American Immigration Lawyers Association says the program does not make us any safer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEAN BUTTERFIELD, IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSN.: There are more than 20 databases that need to be combined and correlated. And I think, as we've seen in recent days, our databases are woefully inadequate. We are mismatching names. We are declaring terrorist alerts for grandmas and little kids. And when you multiply that by the magnitude of what's going into effect today, I think we have the potential to actually do ourselves harm economically and with our allies and friends abroad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN STEIN, FAIR: And if we don't move forward with this, our society will never have the kind of border inspections procedures needed over the next 30 years to deal with the incredible crush of migration pressure from all over the world.

Where this is an age of modern mobility, people are on the move. Everybody who's used the Visit system is saying hey, this is easy. You know it's a quick fingerprint scan. People don't have any problem with it, with the technologies. They're comfortable using it. It takes only a couple of minutes. Yes, there's going to be some glitches when you first implement a system like this, but good grief, I mean this is -- at the least, this is what we can do in the wake of 9/11. There's so much more that needs to be done just on top of U.S.-Visit if we're ever going to make our immigration system secure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Stein and Butterfield debated this issue last hour right here on LIVE FROM.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com