Editorial: Terror has no borders

Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2004 | 8:40 a.m.

The war on terrorism expanded this week to include the fingerprinting and photographing of foreign visitors arriving in this country by plane or sea. The prints and photos are checked against data bases that can almost instantly reveal whether the person is suspected of ties to terrorism or criminal activity. In our view, escalating terrorism has made this system necessary, despite the inconvenience and the increased personal scrutiny.

By the end of next year, the system will have been expanded to include 50 land border crossings into the United States. We hope the expansion eventually includes the 27 nations, mostly in Europe, whose citizens are allowed to travel here for 90 days without visas. Right now, citizens from those countries are exempt from the new requirements. We see this as a loophole, one that threatens the effectiveness of the new security measure. It's naive to believe that terrorists would never come from certain countries. Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, for example, was a British citizen traveling on an American Airlines flight to Miami from Paris. Given the world we live in, there should be no exemptions.

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