It happened a few hours ago at the airport. We were queueing with non-US passport holders to go through immigration.
I tried not to think about what was happening.
The people doing it to me looked a bit apologetic. But not really enough. They did not realise that many people had died over the centuries to obtain these little freedoms from government (back then it was the king) which we were now giving up as we entered the country.
It really made me feel sick.
My dad had just been fingerprinted. That record now another datafile in the US government (the one involved in the Iraq War, the global financial crisis, subsidising genetic engineering etc) and Interpol. And now it was my turn.
And in a country where there was no habeus corpus.
I felt as if I was in a daze. Could it really be happening? This was America, wasn’t it? You know “land of the free”. The place my ancestors escaped to to get away from oppressive government. I felt bad, really bad. It was like a banana republic.
But painted up. So no one really realised what is going on. Or at least doesn’t object. But it’s criminal. It’s unjust. It’s the worst example to set.
Someone said that they wouldn’t mind being fingerprinted because they hadn’t done anything wrong. Well that patriotism is admirable, but naive and misplaced. Irrespective of her innocence or my disgust, the practice of treating people like may dad in such a way is primitive, immoral and unjust. And without habeus corpus, if an innocent was arrested, perhaps on some spurious conjecture, she could be held for no reason indefinitely.
It’s just wrong.
It is ironic that my brother was feted on the streets of Philadelphia in 1986 with other family representatives of the descendants of the signers of the US constitition, yet here was my dad and me being treated like suspects, if not criminals.
It makes me want to cry.
Was no one standing up to stop this shocking treatment of people? Had they all forgotten what freedom is about? This is not America.
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