That's really nonsense though. If you live in the country, contribute to the economy etc, why shouldn't you have democratic rights, a say in how the country is run? Otherwise, choosing to disregard the views of certain segments of the population (who may all still be contributing to society in many important ways) just reeks of intentionally disenfranchising ethnic minorities. Considering Japan's labour shortage, declining birthrate etc it is absolutely in Japan's interests to encourage immigration. Requiring naturalisation as you suggest would be pretty fucked considering Japanese citizens themselves cannot hold dual citizenship.

I respectfully suggest you re-think you view on that particular issue :) I'm not British, nor do I want to be, but I currently live, work in the UK and I can vote. Wouldn't want it any other way.

kiigan

Otherwise it just feels like discrimination and xenophobia at work.

DarkMirage

It's not really a big problem. It's a little one. But a lot of little problems like this can add up in a hurry.

Insomnia Bob

Its gonna take more than some fingerprinting at the airport to keep me from going there to teach. I get put through hassle in USA airports EVERY friggin time I go. Sure its annoying but i'd say its worth the trip. I went last summer and no fingerprinting, ill prolly go next summer deal with the crap and enjoy my trip. Untill they start trying to hang me from a tree i got no problem.

ConnDestn

I figure that the Iraq War, the kidnapping of the Japanese journalists in Iraq, and the killing of the journalist in Myanmar is ideal conditions for creating a fear wave.

onikuwagata

develin

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

Insomnia Bob

TheCleaningGuy

I understand that you've been out of the country. It's ok. You couldn't have known.

Insomnia Bob

Brian Ashcraft

On the other hand, I have a completely irrational hatred of the fingerprinting, especially as it doesn't apply to Japanese Nationals. I'm going to the states next March so we'll see how I feel about it when I actually get fingerprinted. At this point, it's just venting steam.

Also, Ashcraft, you talked about registering your Fingerprint data: I thought that was only a test program in Narita? Is that all airports now?

Another curious thing, if you naturalize, and it is illegal for them to take fingerprints of a citizen unless they are involved in a crime, will they then have to delete your fingerprints from their database?

ハリセンボン

Lets not even get into how much it costs to drive in Japan.

Witzbold

@ビッグ ボス: See above: Less a visitor issue, more a resident issue.

@badasscat: Well, if you're paying taxes (which I am), it's sorta our business. Gives you the right to bitch and moan at least. You don't complain how the government spends your tax money?

Brian Ashcraft

Brian Ashcraft

Besides, if Ann Coulter can own property in California and vote here but not actually live here, then all this shit about voting who can vote is pointless.

kenkankendo

I have a holiday planned for Japan next year - bookedand all but I am seriously reconsidering now.

That's really bloody stupid Japan.

syl1985

Stan LS

BigApple

Robert Isbell

Anemone

Tepoz

Stan LS

Anemone

Stan LS

Anemone

Stan LS

One of the favorite commedians of the 80's, during Ronald Reagan's Presidency, was Yakov Smirnoff. Mainly his act consisted of comparing Russian daily life with American daily life: "In the US, you watch television. In Soviet Russia, television watches you!" Besides blaring "Born In The USA" at every festival (did anyone ever listen to those lyrics?????), one of the common things said during that time was that "we don't need papers" to go about our daily business. The mindset in America at that time was that people living in Communist countries regularly had to prove their citizenship or be hauled off to the Gulag to never be seen again.

Tepoz

Stan LS

XvCowboyvX

-

I'd say you're "at a loss" for relevant historical knowledge.

Go read some history books, if you own any. Get a library card if you don't.

FlapjacksAreTasty

Of course, my upbringing was wonderful, 99% of people have no qualms with you, but nonetheless where there is a chance to attribute crime -- or the threat of crime -- to a foreign entity, it's frequently the case. A lot of, "Well, not so much you/you exempt this, but THOSE people..."

Not to mention, with Mr. Bashcraft, whatever ethnicity he might be, his life obviously hasn't been too complicated by this. Perhaps it will set it in in later years that he will constantly, permanently be looked down upon for his color. Try being black, or of Eastern origin, and think of how you might feel then. Plus, I don't know where he resides, but if he's near or in a metropolitan area -- especially Tokyo -- it's a much different world for living elsewhere in Japan.

Check this link out. Granted, these instances are those collected throughout the entire nation by residing foreigners, but nonetheless, it's a worthwhile read: [www.debito.org]

dunbine

Stan LS

So let me get this straight, for us to be free, we must live in a draconian society. Am I the only one who thinks there is something wrong with that thinking. It's like 1984, is not a just a fictional book, but rule book where people who formerly had freedoms now use double think and double speak to rationalise their existence.

If we are not willing to fight for our own freedoms, then we deserve none of them, because no one will fight for them on our behalf. Maybe that nutter who went on that killing spree a week or so ago was right about the state of the human race today.

Sad, sad, Sad!

sauvage

Isn't it insane how much fear there's on this thread? Oh, no! The Man is out to get us all!

Stan LS

I find it highly amusing that for a group of people on the cusp of technology's edge you rampantly jump up and down like apes the second it is applied to everyday hum drum activities. I'd hate to think of how your ancestors reacted when told a picture would be needed on passports, I fear they also proclaimed the end of liberty and freedom. Jeez.

Forget terrorism for a second and just think of the practicalities. Fingerprints offer a quick verification to match you to your passport. It is a security measure which is hard to bypass for the average person. I'd also like to think it speeds up the immigration process too. Ultimately the fingerprint reveals your port of entry (perhaps departure too), this is no different to your flight details and passport. So what exactly is the problem? They are tracking no more additional information but only adding a layer of verification that it is correct.

Reality is, the bad people will always find a way around these systems but that isn't any reason why we should stop trying to improve the system.

Jelster

Too bad there aren't many humanists around in this world. I'm tired of seeing people screwing each other around - back home, here in the US, Japan etc. *Sigh*

huhwhat

arekkusu

FlapjacksAreTasty

Stan LS

Stan LS

Tisteldun

That is one of Ol' Ben's best quotes, and it would good of us to remember it. Especially today as the continued effects of the post-9/11 world cause more people to live in fear of a possibility instead of to live in the freedom and comfort that is the reality for those of us lucky enough to not be in the problem spots.

Bellamy

'What worries me is that Japan hasn't yet experience foreign terrorism, and yet the country is cracking down harder than the US.'

***

I'm at a loss for words. These two statements here are so incredible.
If we can all agree that planes flying into buildings killing a few thousand is terrorism, can we also agree that the use of atomic bombs on two heavily populated cities is also terrorism?

Oh but... I guess that doesn't count because it was a war?
Simply different points of view.

invisible_cat

William Killer Shatner

I totally agree man, it's like where will they draw the line? How much privacy of law abiding citizens can be eroded before the government will be 'satisfied'?
Even then it would only take another bomb or murder or whatever for politicians to decry that they haven't monitored us enough and use it as an excuse to install cameras at every corner, or have DNA profiling, and it STILL won't stop someone if they want to kill or maim.
If playing Civ has taught me one great quote its the line by Benjamin Franklin:
'Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.'

mrrobsa

Similar to how the whole ZOMG VIDEOGAME VIOLENCE IS BAD situation got started / is worse in Japan than it is in the states situation. It all stemmed off of the GTA bad press hype from the states, which flowed into Japan. I remember the whole shit going down on various talk shows and news stations. Was rather stupid. Thanks to that the country has gone soccer mom on games. Which explains why marketing is so shit for titles like Dead Rising / Gears of War etc.

Witzbold

otimus

It's sad to see Japan following a similar path.

SSJPabs

Stan LS

icelight

A good example is the Chinese folk in Akiba selling the pirated software in the middle of the 4 way back street that has been there for quite some time now. The people from Africa who are working as "greeters" for roppongi clubs, since I do recall you cant put that you work at a "club" as a legit job for a work visa. Although you can "lie" about it, and mark down as working in the "service" industry or as an "entertainer".

Lots of other examples floating around if you just keep your eyes open.

Japan is just too lazy to do anything about it until it becomes a real eyesore.

Im fine for people from other countries doing stuff in a legit manner in Japan, but when I see all the problem causers here just going about their daily biz and not getting into any sort of trouble while we "normal" folk get hassled I start to get pissed off.

Witzbold

lz_cec

I could care less that they have my fingerprints and photos, well they already do anyways since I first got here due to the type of visa I have, but what pisses me off is as a taxpayer there are far better things they could be using the $$$ on, than some farce security measure that is just for show.

Witzbold

I'm personally against this because the system is broken and a waste of time and money (my tax money as well, hey I pay shitloads of Japanese tax) - not because I hate to have my finger prints taken. And I don't think I'm alone. Heck I have my finger prints registered with the HK government as a PR resident of HK, but at least it allows me to use the automated biometric gates which lets me go in and out of the country in 2 minutes (literally) - and HK doesn't even finger print foreigners entering its boarders. My other homeland - Australia - also don't do stupid shit like this, and Australia is much higher on the "hate" list for terrorists as well as having a Bush lap dog as a prime minister.

As others have pointed out, the risk of domestic terrorism is far far greater than that of foreign terrorism, they are basically going head-over-heels in tackling a minor issue while ignoring a bigger threat. If they want to go for "secruity", finger print everyone I say. That's the issue I have with this law - it's not because it's racists, it's because it's stupid and unrational.

houkoholic

On the other hand, a large percentage of street crime is committed by foreigners.

Who says this is all about terrorism?

Anyway, what business is it of ours to tell Japan how to handle immigration into their country? This is a nation with a history that's literally thousands of years older than ours. We have a "tradition" of immigration in this country that dates back just 200 years and even we are having a debate about keeping our borders open. I think that over the past 2000 years, they've earned the right to handle their immigration issues however they see fit.

So you're a foreigner in Japan and you need to give up your fingerprints. This is the sound of world's smallest violin playing.

badasscat

I just read 653 posts from that, and my anger level is nuts.

It could be some right wing group got all its members to post there, but what a bunch of ridiculousness. Not even one good reason why fingerprinting is bad. The only even remotely logical comment on there was "well, if foreigners hate it so much, make everyone get printed," when that's not the issue. Everyone else was just saying "It's the governments job to protect its citizens" or "if you don't like Japan's rules, go home", or some things that were downright racist.

I know that kind of stuff goes on everywhere, but it still upsets when you see it first hand.

And after @Orez comment, I really disagree with fingerprinting in any country. It doesn't help unless they've been conviting of a crime in the country already, and it just creates security leaks as we move towards biometric locks in our lives. Now that I've thought more about it, police should rely on traditional methods of crime prevention, and allows us to keep our bodies private.

Bellamy

Daz_Genetic

OtakuboyT

kidnicky

Waz

The world is getting smaller. It's getting damned hard to get around without having some number tied to your name, which is a shame. Does Japan have a lot of CC-TV like the UK does? I can deal with a fingerprint and a mugshot, but having video cameras...everywhere? Not so much.

vongarr

Cagny

Eating in public is "corrupting the youth"?
...
Japan is kind of famous for having barely any crime. But in my uninformed opinion, it seems more and more like half its entire culture is paying for that with the almost ridiculous emphasis on things like this...

SuperMaxZero

I could care less if Japan has my fingerprint and picture. The US obviously knows I'm traveling somewhere to begin with, so if Japan shares it with the US that's cool too.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see the big deal with this. If it offends you to be asked to give fingerprints and a picture (when they already have your passport info on file anyway), then you're seriously oversensitive and possibly overly paranoid too.

ビッグ ボス

Ah, fuck it. Who am I kidding? You run into soft racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and good old fashion "ZOMG, MEXICANT!" in every country on Earth, in one form of another. At least they arn't rounding up the Americans and putting them in camps. (too soon?)

Ironically, that crazy lizard part of out brain that tells us to distrust that which is different is, perhaps, the one thing we all have in common!

Insomnia Bob

Knotan

While countries love to see progressive, ALL countries in reality have a underlying current of hate toward some group.

Falconfire

Is it just me, or isn't it best to take preventative measures _before_ something happens? I had to get fingerprints for my green card a long while back, didn't really bother me other than the fact that I felt government workers should try speeding up their processes a bit.

Oh yeah, here's a few more responses from one part of the 2ch community: [blog.livedoor.jp]

muu

jwrose

Just for starters, when a government requires your fingerprints (even when you've been a law-abiding model citizen for years) it feels like a slap in the face. They're essentially saying that they don't trust you and no matter how well you fit in that you're still a damn foreigner and you always will be. When a country becomes your adopted home, this is a genuinely hurtful experience. Even in the US, as a native citizen, these measures feel invasive and harmful to me.

Secondly, why should the government have my fingerprints on file, honestly? Do you really trust them with that information? In the case of the US, whom the Japanese are basing this policy off of, who here remembers the Veteran's Affairs department links just a few years ago? Part of my problem with increased information retention and gathering by the government is that historically they do bad job with it. Every year they release the Congressional IT security reports and every year you see that half the government is just begging to release your SSN to the world. I can't wait until we move to biometrics and my unchangable fingerprint gets leaked, oh goody good joy!

Third, this fingerprinting move is just a step toward DNA registration which just patently wrong in my mind. Besides, this sort of legistlation will start with foreigners and felons then move onto soldiers and then onto the general populace, mark my words.

Fourth, whatever happened to the expectation of reasonable privacy? The ability to speak one's mind without fear of retribution has always been key to a democratic society. Now we have a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who doesn't believe in a constitutional right to privacy and I fear that most people do not realize the full brunt of what that entails. For the people outside the US who believe this doesn't effect them, Mr. Bashcraft is being affected by an essentially exported version of our law.

Believe me, I'm not a tiny-government free-market-hugging Ron-Paul-worshipping libertarian sort. I think government should be active in people's lives, lending a helping hand, providing services to citizens and foreigners alike. But to do that, governments do not need fingerprints, wiretaps, DNA swabs, library records, national ID cards, or data mining. They need college scholarships, and health insurance, and social assistance. Even law enforcement used to be "Protect and Serve", today it seems more like "Investigate and Control."

Sorry if this rant ran overlong for a quickie Kotaku comments section, not my intent to rant and rave. But if you don't see a problem with this sort of thing, please: stop and think about it. For the rest of us, at the very least.

Orez

Because it's an issue here with some of the community.

Because of Japan's treatment of foreigners isn't always fair (to put it politely), there are some residents who want to have more input in the government.

For example : Even if you are a temporary worker, lets say for 2-3 years, you have to pay into the pension fund of Japan. But since you aren't staying in the country long enough to collect that pension, you are allowed to apply for that money back. It takes months to process, you lose extra money in the exchange rate changes (since you don't get your money back until after you've gone home, the government gives you the money in yen, and unless you worked enough to have a large payout, you lose money due to the small size of the transfer), and you don't get all of the money anyway.

Anyone more familiar with the return % give that little detail? I've heard everywhere from 70% to 90% return. Regardless, it's not all you paid.

So, who wouldn't want to speak up and ask for a change? Of course, Japanese nationals really don't mind taking money from foreigners, so most native politicians aren't going to listen to a foreigner as we can't vote or have any say in the government.

So I'm not sure voting is the way to go either, but foreigners do need more ways to work with the government directly.

Bellamy

What makes me laugh are the little LED displays above the counters, some of which haven't actually been configured in the years they've been there.

Which means they display their default animations.

Which means there's one of a bomb going off which I giggle at every time I see it.

Aimless

LunchViking

luksy

Of course, I had nothing to worry about because it wasn't mandatory then but I now fear that the next time we visit the other halfs family in Shizuoka, I may have to stay at home. As I read the other day, Japan and America are quite happy to exchange notes on which foreigners are entering their countries to each other and that is something I am not happy about.

johnnywashngo

"Then again, permanent residents don't have the right to vote (nor should they, I think)"

Just out of interest Brian, why do you say that?

kiigan

kimcheese

I guess using the ruse of "Anti-terrorism" to please xenophobic nationalist bureaucrats doesn't just exist in America.

Japan has the right to monitor its borders, but the reasoning behind this move is a bit outlandish. It's not like Sweden or anything, that opened up the flood gates to everyone that wanted in (like myself at one point) and now suffers from a staggering crime rate and record low unemployment rate.

Japan was never easy to get into permanently in the first place.

By the way, look up "Passport chips" and be pleasantly surprised at what the US is about to do with your passport. It makes this new policy in Japan look like playing cops and robbers in kindergarten.

Patient

I think this sort of thing is silly for any nation to do, though, U.S. and Europe included. It would not have caught the 9/11 hijackers, the Madrid bombers, the London bombers, or anyone else.

It's only slightly above the "no liquids" rule on the Chart of Paranoid Idiocy.

erlik

But as for seeing a movie at 9:30am, good god, when does your day start? I don't think i'll ever see a movie that early ever...

ArmyofJuan

guess what. real freedom has no price.

Latonone

Stan LS

Brian Ashcraft

Shiryu

And yes it is their country, so if they want to drive way businessmen, English teachers, tourists, etc, it's their right - they just have to deal with the consequences.

Akin

LunchViking

I guess I don't mind fingerprinting so much - my fingerprints have been on file with my local Atlanta, GA police station since I was like 6y.o. so the police would have something to track me by in case of emergency (something I recommend you have your kids do, American parents).

And since the US has been fingerprinting, I haven't complained about it here in Japan, but I do think it's odd how hard Japan is cracking down, since most of the drug runners and other problems are actually increasingly Japanese nationals, since the cops always crack down on the foreigners.

They really can't keep doing this level of profiling and discrimination, it's hurting Japanese efforts to combat crime than helping.

Of course, the Japanese can't even hire enough doctors to do forensics, so I guess they have to show they are doing something besides checking bicycle registration...

Bellamy

Its just another way of the J govt to go about wasting taxpayers money.

Since seriously, the only terrorist attacks that have occured here were home grown.

Witzbold

When you say biometric, does that mean they do it digitally now, or this is still the old roll-finger-in-ink fingerprinting style? An interesting system, one I am not too partial to, but I can see how this can benefit the country. At least they are not doing iris scans or palm feature detection, which is what some government agencies are starting in the States these days. Next stop, Minority Report.

ruslander

CyricZ

Yeah. I need to lay off the hootch so early in the morning.

LaserJudas

jacksinn