Doctorow scoops me again by noting yesterday's USA Today article on DHS's wacky plan to make the airlines organize and pay for fingerprinting people as they leave the US.
See, fingerprinting departures is so essential that nobody actually wants to be stuck doing it.
Cory also notes that the whole fingerprinting fiasco has been fantastic from the start -- all those expensive machines (with a price tag of $15 billion(!)) haven't caught a single terrorist. Or any suspected terrorists. They caught about a thousand minor visa violations -- at a mere $15 million per violation, we all think we could be getting better value for our security dollar. Wonder where those billions went? I'm thinking somebody had a cousin in the fingerprinting machine business...
(Later update: that's what I get for trusting Cory Doctorow! The price of the fingerprinting system was only in the hundreds of millions. OK, so that's fine, then.) (Not.)
Thanks to jgodsey for the tip (not that I wouldn't have been heading over to BoingBoing anyway, but still -- thanks!)
Perhaps not so coincidental that every time Bush says "terrorists," it sounds like "tourists." :)