Gratuitous Nazism comparison

A Brazilian judge compared the new US fingerprinting program to the “worst horrors of the Nazis”:

The United States began fingerprinting and photographing visitors from most countries on Monday in a controversial program to try to prevent potential terrorists from slipping in through the borders.

[ . . . ]

But the Brazilian fingerprint program of U.S. visitors that began last Thursday came on the orders of a judge who angrily compared the new U.S. controls to Nazi horrors.

“I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis,” said Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva in a court order to authorize the program in Brazil.

Hmmmm, I bet if you asked a thousand Holocaust survivors whether they thought that comparison was justified, they’d say that fingerprinting is horrifying. /sarcasm

I also find it interesting that the judge was making the comparison in the process of implementing a similar program in Brazil, to fingerprint Americans. As far as I can tell, there is no security reason for that program, and it is being done purely out of childish spite. Talk about wasting public funds!

As for the US program, for the moment Canadians are exempt, but even if we weren’t, I’d have to agree with this guy:

“I think it’s good with everything that’s going on,” said Scott Murray, a Jamaican arriving at the airport. “If you have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t be a problem. I wasn’t offended.

When I got on a plane in the US last week, I was asked to remove my shoes to go through the metal detector, and place the shoes on the X-ray belt. Everyone else had to as well. Nobody cared. I’d rather take an extra five seconds to take off my sneakers than be on a plane hijacked by terrorists. And if a simple fingerprinting program could be helpful, then why not?

But if I have to travel to Brazil, remind me to protest the fingerprinting as barbaric and horrific.