The government of Indonesia is “outraged” that their citizens will be fingerprinted when they visit the States. This is the same government that ignored the civilized world’s request to crack down on suspected terrorists, at least until they themselves were attacked in October. Personally, I’m surprised that all visitors to the States are not fingerprinted as a matter of policy. Indonesia does have a point that this is discriminatory, but there is currently a reason why nations with large Muslim populations were selected by the State Department – these are the populations from which al Qaeda terrorists are most likely to recruit. Two al Qaeda terrorists were already captured this way.

Kudos to our military for collecting these fingerprints from the caves in Afghanistan. Although it is really too bad this was revealed. I don’t know if some governmental agent wanted some good press or some irresponsible newsperson found the scoop, but I wonder how many other terrorists would have been caught if this had been kept quiet.

As more criminals are caught by this policy, I suspect it may eventually expand to all visitors to the States. This would probably make international crime more difficult (i.e., less profitable). It would also have the side effect of negating the discrimination claims.