Fair's Fair But Really

5 January 2004


Brazilian Judge Orders Americans Entering His Country Fingerprinted

In a situation of reciprocal inconvenience for security reasons, a Brazilian judge has ordered all American nationals entering Brazil to be fingerprinted and photographed. This mirrors the situation of Brazilians entering the US. However, Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva let his rhetoric get in the way of his good sense in making the ruling.

First things first, however. The Brazilian constitution currently in effect is not the most time-honored document in the world (it is a tediously long work dating from 1988 and amended thereafter), but it is the fundamental law of South America's largest state. Nowhere in its third chapter covering the judiciary does it indicate that this sort of legislative activity is the province of Brazilian judges. It would seem that unaccountability (they serve for life after a two year probationary period) does for them what it has done for their American counterparts.

However, it is at the border of a nation that it best defends itself from its enemies. Those entering with the intent to do harm are best stopped there because it prevents the necessity of policing the entire nation at intrusive levels. Fingerprinting, photographing and the like are perfectly acceptable methods of monitoring those who are not citizens. Besides, few are compelled to enter Brazil from the US or vice versa. The voluntary nature of the visit is key to the situation. If one doesn't wish to be photographed or fingerprinted, one needn't come. Meanwhile, fugitives, terrorists, criminals and others bent on causing trouble may be caught or deterred.

Unfortunately, Justice da Silva had this to say about America's policy toward Brazilians, "I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis." One respectfully disagrees, but one is equally horrified by the tortured logic. If he is correct, then surely by requiring the same of Americans entering Brazil, he himself is forcing upon his country the sort of horrors worthy of Hitler and his crew. One wonders if there is the necessary two-thirds majority of the federal court to have Justice da Silva, by his own words a practicing Nazi, removed from office for the public good under Article 93 Section VIII of Brazil's constitution.

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