Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kimcheeking]

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Yes, it is probably too late. I still want em back. No, I am not planning on killing anyone, it doesn't really matter. It is, however, the principle of the matter. Innocent until proven guilty. Canadians, unlike you Americans, are not fingerprinted unless convicted of a crime. Land of the free, indeed.

[BTM]

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Actually, Canadians are printed when CHARGED, not when arrested. Americans are printed to get their Social Security cards as far as I know. I would know. Hehe. Still doesn't really change my original point.

[The Lemon]

[BTM]

[Son Deureo!]

This has nothing to do with discrimination against foreigners. All Koreans also have to give their fingerprints when they get their national ID cards.

[stevie rotten]

I remember in Taiwan i had to give a blood sample and had to present them with my feces in a cup . that sucked man.

[BTM]

"Put the other 'Feces In A Cup' guy right outta business!"

[mack the knife]

BTM,

We're neck and neck in posts! I'll race you to tha 1000 mark! Marks, get set....POW!!

[Derrek]

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Recent Globe and Mail article on Canadian attitudes toward fingerprinting:

We'll keep our fingerprints to ourselves


By JOHN IBBITSON
Monday, October 6, 2003 - Page A19
Tomorrow and Wednesday, Immigration Minister Denis Coderre will host a forum to discuss whether Canada should implement a national identity card.

If he is lucky, he will be able to put a dent in the nearly universal opposition to the idea of fingerprinting the entire nation. He probably won't be that lucky.

For many, the very idea of an identity card is so ludicrous as to preclude debate. Making every citizen and resident provide the government with a fingerprint, or some other unique identifier that would be the basis for the card, smacks of Big Brother and the Stasi, not to mention the Mark of the Beast. But Minister Coderre believes strongly that such measures are not only necessary, but inevitable. And he has a strong case.

The United States is hoping to launch the new US-VISIT program next year, although the program is seriously behind schedule and facing funding cuts from Congress. If and when implemented, US-VISIT will require everyone entering the United States to register upon arrival and at departure. The means of registration will be though some kind of biometric identifier: an optically scanned fingerprint, iris, or other unique body part. (Don't go there.) U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge has promised the Canadian government that our citizens will be exempt from US-VISIT. However, Congress has not yet ratified that exemption, and even if Canadian citizens are allowed through without being scanned, permanent residents (what we used to call landed immigrants) will not be.

In order to keep our border open, then, the permanent resident's identity card, which already exists, will need to contain a biometric identifier. Sooner or later, the Canadian passport will probably need the same thing.

In that case, goes the argument, why not take the next step and simply issue everyone with a biometrically encrypted identity card? Not only would it satisfy American (and eventually European) security concerns, but such a card would make it easier to thwart terrorists, as well as those pettier criminals who now routinely steal people's identities in the form of credit card, bank card or health card theft.

And as for knee-jerk reactions against biometric fingerprints or other identifiers, how is a fingerprint different from a photograph? This might be a good time to take a look at your driver's licence.

Put this way, the argument in favour of such a card seems formidable. But the obstacles facing the card are more formidable still.

Privacy commissioners everywhere oppose the very idea. Creating a national database of citizens, which will be required in order to issue the card, offers huge potential for abuse of privacy, they believe.

The cost of implementing the card could range as high as $5-billion, argues Robert Marleau, the federal interim privacy commissioner. Giving every Canadian a card in order to catch a few potential terrorists, who could probably foil the system anyway, is massive security overkill.

"The privacy risks associated with a national identification card are formidable," Mr. Marleau wrote in a report released last month. "The challenges of putting in place a national identification system that is workable, affordable and respectful of the privacy rights of Canadians are enormous. A strong case for the benefits has not been made; to the extent that benefits exist, they would be marginal at best.

"Accordingly, this Office urges Parliament to reject the proposal."

If that weren't bad enough, advisers close to Paul Martin report that he is exceedingly cool to the idea. The incoming prime minister will not be attending the forum. The fact that such a card would be more likely to offend new arrivals and visible minorities -- a key Liberal constituency -- makes the idea of even suggesting such a card mere months before an election nonsensical.

Nonetheless, Mr. Coderre plans to plow ahead. Paul Martin may not be on board now, the Immigration Minister's advisers argue, but he has not been in cabinet for more than a year. Once he sees how the rest of the world is moving, he will come around.

Perhaps. But it will be a long road for Paul Martin, and the rest of us, to travel, before we are willing to accept this Beastly mark.

[igotthisguitar]

>. Any word yet on whether this proposal has become SK law yet ??? As a matter of principle ( i.e. why should any freedom loving citizen place blind faith in any government ??? ) many would of course appreciate these measures in our reclaiming a degree of privacy.

As far as this goes, i have some fellow teachers i've told about this & we'd all be interested in knowing whether we can go pick our respective copies up.

Thanks.

( p.s. What's up with the Napoleonic Code ??? )

[igotthisguitar]

>. Still nothing ??? No confirmation of anything one way or another ???

On principle alone, this curious little policy seriously bites. Do they fingerprint tourists ??? Why only foreign workers ???
Are we statistically more prone to committing "criminal" acts as compared to all saintly & incorruptible Koreans ???

While it likely ain't yet half as bad as places like China, the USA or Columbia, from the stories i've heard the justice system here
certainly is in need of reform & leaves a good deal to be desired

Everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast

Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past

Everybody knows the scene is dead
but there's gonna be a meter on your bed

That will disclose
What everybody knows ...

[kangnamdragon]

They will probably start fingerprinting Americans at the airport.