I initially applauded Brasil deciding to give visiting Americans a taste of their own medicine. But come to think of it, my attitude toward authority is something like that American Airlines pilot. Fingerprinting, with its common association with arrest & criminality, is intended to degrade & intimidate. It is an act of power over powerlessness. I don't take well to being yelled at or humiliated, so I can see myself doing the same thing if I were in that position.

[ January 15, 2004, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: BillyBones ]

BillyBones, why would you be humiliated. With the war going on adn terrorist threats, wouldn't you expect/welcome hightened security to be implemented? It's not just happening to you, unfortunately it's the result of the state of the world today.

An American flipping off police in another country is just what perpetuates the stereotype of arrogant Americans.

So I guess I'm supposed to accept anything done in the guise of "security"? But what Brasil has done is a good example of my point: this has nothing to do with security risk & is basically a tit-for-tat--to make American guests experience the same degrading procedure to which Brasilian guests are subjected upon arrival in the U.S.A.

However, I understand that any time I visit another country, there is a duty to respect its laws. And certainly Brasil has a sovereign right to implement whatever procedures it wants for foreign travelers. I was just saying that were I in that situation, I would be inclined to act in a similar manner--just me & my attitude. I am quite defensive about things like this, or other degrading practices such as employee drug-testing (I have never peed in a bottle & never will) or police stopping me to demand ID just for walking down the street (I always refuse). As for Brasil, this probably means simply that for now I will not travel there.

[ January 15, 2004, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: BillyBones ]

It's not just that. When I was in University, I worked in a resort hotel in Alberta. Probably 50 - 60% of the guests were American, and while 99% of the Americans were nice, polite people, it's the 1% that stick in my mind.

Like the guy who refused Canadian money as change in the bar where I was a bartender. He wanted "real" money. (dude, you're in Canada. You'll get Canadian money).

Or the summer I was a waiter, and one man at a table of about 3 couples kept on snapping his fingers at me and calling me "boy". I ignored him, and when I finally went to the table, it turns out he wanted to know what time the bars closed. It was freakin lunch time.

But the most memorable was a middle aged couple from the south. I don't know where they were from, just that they had a southern accent.
I was working the Front Desk that summer, and they came to check in just as a convention was checking in. They didn't appreciate having to wait, and made it VERY clear. When their turn came and they came up to the counter to check in, the woman proceeded to insult me, as well as other Canadians, and to make her point, she spat on me. (the Front Office Manager told them that they would probably be happier staying somewhere else).

My point, is that I probably met thousands and thousands of Americans in my 4 summers working at the hotel, but when I think back to that time, those 3 incidents stand out in my mind.

But no, I would never blame every American for those attitudes.

Just Republicans.

BillyBones, thank you for explaining your feelings, I was just curious. Growing up in Hawaii, I have countless stories of Americans behaving badly. Even though Hawaii is part of the U.S. some "Mainlanders" go over and have no regard/respect for other cultures, customes and laws. Of course, it's not all Americans that have this attitude. As Lksimcoe pointed out, unfortunately the negative experiences tend to be the ones that are remembered most.

It is now known that some terrorist are attempting to become employees of the airline industry. So if stopping Americans in a Brazilian airport for extra security can possibly prevent even one terorsist from slipping through the cracks, I'd consider it worth the inconvenience that it may cause me. The absolute last thing I'd want to happen to me is going to jail in a foreign country just because I felt degraded by their security procedures. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Given that Richard Reid (UK citizen), Zacarias Moussaoui (French citizen), and many of the 9/11 bombers had spent considerable time in Europe (especially in Germany, it appears, a terrorist haven), and given that wackos in Greece, for example, have attacked American diplomats and installations within the last 5 years, and given that hostility of even some smaller nations to the US's foreign policy (let's be clear, Luxembourg is hardly in love with what the US is up to), I do find it problematic that the 27 nations not subjected to the US's new policy are ALL European. Canada and Mexico are operating under under protocols, but really, in recent years (especially since the end of the dictatorship there), when has a Brazilian national been involved in any anti-US activity? Moreover, there would probably be a way to screen passengers flying from the major Brazilian airports to the US without subjecting them to the new measures; and while I understand that the US is also concerned about immigration issues, shouldn't we be far more concerned about our borders, especially the one with Mexico, which is still quite porous and across which an Al Qaeda fanatic could pass and penetrate almost anywhere into the country? Trucks coming into Texas, Arizona or New Mexico could easily get to any number of major US cities, installations, or military bases without a problem, so I really hope that securing the borders against terrorism is as high a priority as fingerprinting people from Fiji, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, and yes, Brazil.