U.S. starts fingerprint program
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A US-VISIT program computer clears student Andres Morales through customs at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on Monday.
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VIDEO
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Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge discusses fingerprinting international visitors.
CNN's Elaine Quijano reports on biometric anti-terrorism screening.
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| EXEMPT COUNTRIES |
Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (for citizens with the unrestricted right of permanent abode in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man)
Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security
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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Up to 28 million visitors to the United States now have to stop for photographs and fingerprinting under a new government program launched Monday and intended to make it harder for terrorists to enter the country.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the new US-VISIT program applies to any visitors who must have a visa to enter the United States.
By October, all visitors will be required to have a machine-readable passport or some other method of biometric identification, such as fingerprints or retina scans.
"As the world community combats terrorism ... you're going to see more and more countries going to a form of biometric identification to confirm identities," Ridge said.
Citizens from more than two dozen countries, mostly in Europe, aren't required to carry a visa if their visit is less than 90 days. Visitors from those countries are exempt.
Visitors from exempt countries who are working in the United States, however, require a work visa, and therefore must leave their fingerprints and photographs with U.S. authorities.
"We want visitors from abroad to continue to come to the United States, but we also want to secure our borders," Ridge said.
First steps
Ridge acknowledged that US-VISIT -- United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology -- will only cover a small fraction of the estimated 500 million annual visitors to the United States, but he said the program was but the "first significant step in a series of steps" the government plans to take in the coming months and years.
Outside of Europe, the exempt countries include Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Brunei. Citizens of Canada generally do not need a visa to enter the United States.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says the goal of the US-VISIT program is to track the millions of people who come to the United States every year on business, student and tourist visas -- and to use the information as a tool against terrorists.
Critics say the broad-reaching program will cause unnecessary travel delays and may never prove to be effective.
"There's so much information in such volumes that there's a limit to what any analyst can absorb," said Larry Johnson, an aviation security consultant.
Faiz Rehman, president of the National Council of Pakistani-Americans, points to the disruption in travel.
"Without proper training, there will be long lines, there will be missed flights, there will be people who would be wrongly stopped," Rehman said.
Brazilian backlash
Outside the United States, there has been a backlash as well.
In reaction to the U.S. policy, Brazil last week began fingerprinting and photographing American visitors arriving at Sao Paulo's airport. Brazil's Foreign Ministry has also requested that Brazilians be removed from the U.S. list.
Ridge said that "if the Brazilian government thinks it's in their interests (to fingerprint and photograph Americans), so be it."
"It's not two standards, one for the United States and one for the rest of the world," he said.
The U.S. program, which has a budget of $380 million, will require an estimated 24 million visitors to submit two finger scans and have a photograph taken upon entering any of 115 airports or 14 seaports.
Homeland Security spokesman Bill Strassberger said once screeners become proficient, the extra security will take only 10 to 15 seconds per person, The Associated Press reported.
Inkless fingerprints will be taken and checked instantly against a digital database for criminal backgrounds and any terrorist lists. The process will be repeated when visitors leave the United States as an extra security measure and to ensure they complied with visa limitations.
Pentagon official: Fighter jets shadow airliners
Heightened security concerns and the raised terror alert level prompted American fighter jets to "cover" commercial passenger aircraft over the United States more than 10 times since late December, a senior Pentagon official said Monday.
"Covering" means that military aircraft on combat air patrols escort or shadow a commercial aircraft because of possible terror concerns.
The official indicated that Code Orange is expected to last for several more days, possibly through the end of January.
"We are still in the threat zone," he said. The threat condition is based on a stream of information indicating a credible threat involving the possibility of simultaneous attacks in the United States using passenger aircraft against targets in Washington, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the official said.
Monday, Ridge that the delays and cancellations of British Airways flights since Wednesday were justified by the intelligence that led to them.
Without elaboration, Ridge told ABC's "Good Morning America," "We think you err on the side of public safety when you have a threat targeting a specific flight."
On NBC's "Today," the secretary said that "there was specific information regarding those flights." (Full story)
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
