Biometrics making a mark on security of a nation

THE testimonies are aplenty, travel legends that cause many an anxious moment for the ordinary traveller.

“I was questioned inside a holding room for two hours,” a Malaysian visitor recounted his experience on arriving at a US airport.

Another weary traveller spoke of having his statements recorded “as though I was a criminal”.

Well, that’s Uncle Sam for you. The unfortunate ones are picked out for further questioning upon their stepping onto US soil.

Security is now even tighter at US airports following a plan to collect all 10 fingerprints of international visitors aged between 14 and 79 arriving at 10 selected points of entry.

Last month, New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport became the 10th airport to adopt the technology since its introduction at Washington Dulles International Airport on Nov 29 last year.

The other airports are Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Orlando and San Francisco.

Personally, I have had no trouble on the three occasions I landed in New York in the past one year. (“That’s because you don’t have a Mohamed in your name,” a friend sniggered.)

Each time, immigration clearance took less than five minutes, and the officer always behaved like a gentleman. At JFK Airport last month, the guy even chatted amicably with me.

Likewise for Johan Farid Khairuddin, who came to New York City over the past six months for work related to the United Nations.

“I enjoyed it, as everything was fast for me. No hassle, nothing. I guess my Class I media visa gave me some push forward. Also, my letter of entry into the country came straight from the UN.”

The officers were cordial to him. “I got even better treatment when I dropped names like the UN. No kidding, man! They would ask me what I do. When I explained my work at Astro All Asia Networks, and that I am also a radio deejay, they smiled and joked with me.”

My editor Wong Sai Wan would beg to differ. He described his encounter at the Los Angeles airport in June last year as a shabby experience, despite him having a valid visa for journalists travelling to the United States.

He was sent off to a holding room after he told the immigration officer that he was bound for Vancouver the next day.

To them, he required a transit visa, never mind his explanation that he was in Los Angeles to meet with Malaysia Airlines officials.

Eventually, they issued him the transit visa but he ended up US$265 poorer for the fine they imposed on him.

To the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), however, security is the name of the game.

Explaining the move to collect digital fingerprints and photographs of non-citizen arrivals, US-VISIT director Robert Mocny said biometrics had revolutionised the DHS' ability to prevent dangerous people from entering the United States since 2004.

“Our upgrade to 10-fingerprint collection builds on our success, enabling us to focus on stopping potential security risks,” he said in a statement.

US-VISIT is a programme launched under the DHS to record the entry and exit details of travellers. The intention is to enhance security of US citizens and to facilitate legitimate travel.

Last year, the US Congress approved US$362mil to fund the programme.

The fingerprints are verified with DHS records of immigration violators, such as those who overstayed, and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) records of wanted people and terrorists.

“In addition, the fingerprints are checked against the FBI’s criminal master file,” the statement added.

According to the DHS, these biometric identifiers had helped to prevent the use of fraudulent documents, protect visitors from identity theft and stopped thousands of criminals and immigration violators from entering the United States.

Privacy of such biometric and biographic information from travellers are assured, the DHS said. “Personal information is kept secure and confidential, and appropriate security controls ensure that the data is not used or accessed improperly.”

By December this year, the 10-fingerprint requirement will be implemented at the remaining 278 points of entry by air, sea and land.

Keeping faith with the American voter

THERE is a mantra going around that the best way to know how Americans vote is to find out where they are on Sunday.

Regular churchgoers opted for George W. Bush in the 2004 general election, preferring him over John Kerry, who was not known to be comfortable talking abut his Catholic beliefs.

In 2000, Bush reportedly won over 56% of those Americans who attend religious services weekly, against 41% for Al Gore.

Over the past five decades, the Gallup Poll frequently surveyed Americans on the role of religion in their lives. Very often, at least 55% indicated that their faith was “very important” to them.

Women, Southerners, senior citizens, non-whites and lower income people were more inclined to say that religion was huge for them.

This week’s first official trip by Pope Benedict XVI to the United States has led to discussions about the Catholic vote; and how the Democratic presidential candidates are chasing it.

Hillary Clinton is popular among nuns, according to The New York Times, quoting her aides.

Both Clinton and her nemesis Barack Obama are battling hard for votes in the remaining eight states that have yet to hold their nominating contests.

In the critical Pennsylvania round this Tuesday, an estimated 36% of the voters are Catholics.

According to news reports, Obama have tried to connect to this group of people by speaking about his time attending a Catholic school during the four years he spent in Indonesia as a child.

Clinton, a Methodist, has been reported as saying that she had felt the presence of God in her life ever since she was a little girl. “And it has been a gift of grace that has been, for me, incredibly sustaining.”

Back in 1960, there had been concerns about John F. Kennedy being a Roman Catholic. But he was a young candidate who offered a different kind of fresh politics to voters, who were also assured that faith would not interfere with any state decisions.

Political analyst H. Wang found that in the United States, and especially in the current presidential campaign, religion had been raised as a topic in the same way that the economy, Iraq and education had been championed.

“Candidates are either promising to try to include religious ideas into the state or to exclude them further. But religion can never dictate American policies, unlike in Malaysia,” he said.

In every society, he added, religion was a tool of politics and vice versa.

“In Malaysia, religion is part of the state apparatus, with Islam being the official religion. The Government for the past 50 years has carried this out by developing Islamic interests, and building mosques and other institutions for Muslims,” he noted.

So, what role does religion play in secular America?

“Some people say the United States is the most religious nation in a secular set-up. With the state having no role in promoting religion, the state, too, has an obligation of not interfering in the private lives of its citizens,” Wang said.

“Thus, religion outside of the state flourishes. It plays an important role in America in determining political decisions. No where in the western world would the focus of an election include matters such as abortion.”

But how religious are Americans? USA Today reporting on a survey last year, noted that 60% of Americans could not even recall five of the Ten Commandments.

“Being religious does not mean being ritualistic or having a strong sense of religiosity,” Wang said. “It’s not about taking a quiz to determine a person’s faith.”

He explained that the changes in western society in the past 30 years included individuals trying to be more spiritual than ritualistic.

“At the same time, the tendency to equate religion with morality is prevalent in America,” he added.

In that sense, Americans would never vote for an atheist.

“As religion equals morality, atheism is seen as the end of morality, turning society into chaos,” Wang said.

“Americans, although firm believers in individual freedom and a free market, can accept protectionism or even a soft socialist as their president, but they will never accept an atheist.”

Jimmy Carter, for example, was left leaning but voters liked his strong Christian beliefs, he said.

Republican Mitt Romney failed in his bid for his party presidential nomination because Americans were mostly uneasy about his Mormon faith.

“He also did not succeed because he tried to pretend to be someone he isn’t, He tried to be more conservative than he actually is,” Wang pointed out.

Both Clinton and Obama have employed Catholic officials to speak on their behalf in their clamour to win over the faithful. A vast majority of the earlier arrivals among working class Hispanics are professed Catholics, too.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found in a recent survey that one in four Americans aged 18 to 29 declared they were not affiliated with any religion.

Be that as it may be, a person’s personal faith and religious views is a weighty factor in determining the choice of political candidacy in the United States.

No escaping the lure of The Rock for tourists

”BREAK the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz.”

Those words, origin unknown, formed one of the many quotable quotes printed on banners which greeted visitors who assembled at a pier in San Francisco for their trip to the jailhouse that was once home to the most hardened criminals in the United States.

Almost 1.5 million people annually would take the 15-minute ferry ride to the island or The Rock to check out its grim history when it was a prison that housed notorious convicts such as Al Capone.

Visitors like Californian retiree Jaime Ashh had been there on four occasions, each time when he was hosting friends or relatives who were on vacation to the Golden State.

“It is a good place to take people, as long as I don’t have to stay there although it is a 'nice hotel',” he joked.

Visits to the jailhouse were intriguing, he said. “You get an idea what solitary confinement is all about.”

He named a 1962 film, “Birdman of Alcatraz.” which starred Burt Lancaster about convicted murderer Robert Franklin Stroud that had added mystique to the Alcatraz.

“Apparently, he wasn’t a completely bad guy. Some people say he was a real psychopath,” he said.

Of course, the other famous movie was Clint Eastwood's “Escape from Alcatraz” in 1979 about three prisoners who supposedly broke out from the penitentiary.

Ike Newman, a volunteer who briefs tourists to the island, said the question most frequently posed to him was: “Did anyone actually succeed in escaping from what was once known as the most secure prison?”

Somehow, the answer remains vague. According to its official leaflet, 36 prisoners attempted to seek freedom throughout the 29 years that the jail was in operation.

“All but five were recaptured or otherwise accounted for. Three who were unaccounted participated in the same breakout, the June 1962 escape, immortalised in the movie 'Escape from Alcatraz'.”

As for a brief history of the island, war prisoners were sent there back in 1861 but it was not until 1912 that a cell house was constructed there. Its reputation was carved during the 29 years it served as a federal prison from 1934 to 1963.

For comparison’s sake, Malaysia’s own Pudu Prison is much older. Built in 1895, it was shut down only in 1996 with its fair share of infamy, courtesy of convicts such Botak Chin.

Back then, the 101-year-old Pudu Prison was a major feature in the city life of Kuala Lumpur.

At Alcatraz, visitors pay US$24.50 for a self-guided audio tour that takes them down memory lane of the cell house, containing voices of former convicts and correctional officers.

Check out the guard tower, the place where correctional officers spent hours of loneliness keeping a lookout while on duty there.

More importantly, visitors can see those darkened cells, reserved for disruptive inmates who used to be confined there day and night.

These “holes” were meant for those with severe disciplinary problems.

The punishment included total darkness captivity for a certain number of days.

The tour would also walk you through the processes when an inmate was first sent to Alcatraz where he was handcuffed and shackled and then asked to shower and given the blue uniform.

To quote Al Capone, “it looks like Alcatraz has got me licked.”

For shoppers with limited cash

IT IS one of those ironies in New York life. Or perhaps a “blessing” – if you are a shopper with limited cash.

Most of the elegant stores along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue that carry luxury names in fashion, unfortunately, have their clones peddled elsewhere, sometimes just a few blocks away.

But human nature has its shopping needs, so consumers eyeing cheaper knockoffs are surely delighted with such an alternative. Still, these imitations are a headache for law enforcers and trademark owners.

Three months ago, The New York Times reported that the Goyard tote bag was all the rage among street peddlers.

The original is priced at US$1,065 (RM3,400), according to a print advertisement put up by the upscale Barneys New York.

“Goyard’s unique canvas is 100% recyclable and made from natural materials without plastic or petroleum recycle,” the ad said about the shopper tote.

Pretenders to the throne, however, sometimes cost up to just US$100 (RM319).

Stroll along Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side and you would likely chance upon a street vendor offering fake designer bags at a fraction of the original price.

Yearning for a Dolce & Gabbana bag? Get one for US$40 (RM127), which is a steal. Really.

But the mecca of counterfeit goods here has to be in – where else, but – Manhattan’s Chinatown.

In one recent case, the New York Police Department and the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement seized fake goods valued at US$1mil (RM3.19mil) from dozens of stores in Chinatown.

These included fake Rolex watches and handbags bearing the names of Coach, Gucci, Prada, Burberry and Fendi.

“The owner of the so-called Counterfeit Triangle will have to replace the counterfeit vendors with legitimate businesses, and pay a substantial fine, before the buildings can be reopened,” a statement from the Mayor’s office said.

Consisting of 32 storefronts, the Counterfeit Triangle is bounded by Canal Street, Walker Street and Centre Street.

It has the unsavoury reputation of being the hotspot for fake designer goods.

According to the statement, the raids came about following two months of investigation.

“This is the largest single operation my office has conducted and I hope the entire Counterfeit Triangle is transformed into legitimate tax-paying businesses,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in the statement.

The Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement has seized about US$60mil (RM191mil) worth of knockoff goods in the past four years, and shut down 23 locations.

First-time offenders face up to 10 years' imprisonment and US$2mil (RM6.38mil) in fines.

Many of the street vendors that you encounter on the streets of New York come from other countries.

“Most of those who are arrested are not native New Yorkers,” the NYPD said.

Not all of them would peddle their wares openly. Usually, an “agent” would approach a passer-by, asking whether he or she was interested in a Rolex watch or some other designer goods.

The fake merchandise are often kept inside huge, black garbage bags.

Alia Abdul Ghani, a Malaysian financial analyst working in New York City, has a number of stories to tell about her encounters with the street peddlers.

“Every time I am in Chinatown, I am bombarded with these sellers. No joke! They swarm around any woman on the street going ‘gushi gushi’ (Gucci) or ‘plada plada’ (Prada),” she said.

“It is so annoying, and once my patience got to me and I yelled, ‘I don’t wear fake things!’”

Alia is adamant about not owning any designer knockoffs.

“Although I do see the reasons behind people buying them, I have never attempted to do so,” she said.

“I have escorted some friends to Chinatown. Fake goods range in their quality and price. The ones sold on the streets are of poor quality, obvious to the eye that it is fake and, personally, a shame to be carried around!

“An LV monogram canvas knockoff can range from US$40-$100 (RM127-RM319). You need to bargain with these people. However, you can get better fakes online with prices from US$200 (RM638) upwards.

“These websites sell many more brands, including MiuMiu, Marc Jacobs and Fendi; far more choices than just the popular LV and Gucci on the streets. They are also of better quality.

“At times, to the untrained eye it's quite difficult to tell if it is a fake or real.”

Small town living in the Big Apple

IF NEW York City is like one big party, then Staten Island is the wallflower overshadowed by its more captivating neighbours. It’s easy to ignore the quiet little island, one of the five boroughs that make up Gotham.

Manhattan has all the hype, hip hop lives in the Bronx, Brooklyn is booming, Harlem has character and Queens, with its diverse population, is a mini United Nations.

“This place is more like a suburb,” said David Kim, an investment consultant who has been staying in Staten Island for the past 20 years.

It has about 465,000 residents or just about 6% of the total city population. This is a far cry from Brooklyn, the most crowded borough with 2.5 million people.

Kim, however, loves the place just the way it is. “I grew up here. It has a community feel to it. My neighbours are mostly Italians and Jews. Everybody knows each other because all of us have lived here for so long,” he said of Heartland Village, his neighbourhood.

“I rarely lock the door of my house. I probably should, but this is such a close-knit community. Your neighbours would tell you whenever they notice that something is out of place.”

Incidentally, Staten Island has the highest increase in Asian population among the five boroughs in the last few years.

According to reports, the number of Asians in New York has gone up by about 300,000 since 2000. Staten Island recorded the biggest increase at 35%, compared with Manhattan's 20%.

“Most of the houses here have a lawn and a backyard. Asians are attracted to this kind of housing layout. There is their big and extended family to think about,” said Tan Tatt Foo, a Malaysian artist who has found “home sweet home” in Staten Island since 2003.

He is fond of the place as it reminds him of Penang.

“The ferry ride, the serene environment; they are all reminiscent of my childhood.”

Some things in New York, incredibly, still come free; the 25-minute ferry ride to Staten Island from Manhattan is one of them.

It used to cost 50 cents until then mayor Rudy Giuliani abolished the fare in 1997. An estimated 65,000 people ride the ferry each day.

Motorists will take the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that links the island to Brooklyn, paying toll that range from US$1.25 to US$4.50.

Discounts are given to Staten Island residents.

Therein lies the distinct disadvantage of Staten Island, where it is almost compulsory to have a car.

“The place is spread out,” Kim explained. Sure, the bus and the railway system are available but they do not cover most places.

The subway, so ubiquitous in the rest of the city, does not run here.

Thus, Kim spends 90 minutes on the bus to get to his office in Wall Street, Manhattan. He seldom uses the railway, as there is no station near his home.

“Traffic can be a problem. Most people seem to own about two or three cars,” he said.

As Tan put it, there is a driving culture here.

Staten Island also has the dubious honour of being the site for the Fresh Kills landfill, once New York’s main trash can, so to speak. It is now closed and plans are afoot to turn it into a world-class park.

But, at the end of the day, Kim finds Staten Island a great place to live in.

“It is not as busy as Manhattan, and more affordable. This is a good place to raise a family,” he said.

As always, housing prices are a good indicator.

A survey found the average cost of a single-family home in Staten Island had doubled to US$425,000 between 2000 and 2006.

“High-rise condos are coming up as well.”

Kim noted that Brooklynites would visit Staten Island to escape the hustle and bustle of their borough, while New Jersey residents would shop here occasionally.

As for Tan, he prefers to see the glass as half-full when it comes to Staten Island’s non-subway facility.

“It keeps the urban growth to a minimum,” he said.

“We are still not affected by the real estate boom. My wife and I love our current living space, which was built at the turn of the century. It is perfect for an artist.”

Staten Island, to him, is New York City with the feel of a small town.

A helpline to aid networking

IT IS the Silicon Valley, known for its boom and bust cycle where Alice in Wonderland moments are aplenty for the newbies.

But for Haniza Zainal Abidin who moved to San Jose five years ago, it is a place she feels right at home.

In fact, she leads the Malaysian Professional And Business Association (MPBA), a 15-year-old organisation whose members lean on for professional and social support. It also promotes business opportunities in Malaysia.

Malaysians, according to Haniza, must really do more networking. “I have seen many opportunities squandered because people do not put themselves out there.”

Since most tech companies were moving parts of their operations to the Midwest due to the lower costs, she believes that Malaysians could also take advantage of such a trend.

“They should keep abreast with the economy through weblogs, newspapers and magazines.”

MPBA was more of a social group until Haniza took over as president last year. “My vision is to make it more business and professional-oriented.”

The association has been a helpline for Malaysians in the San Francisco Bay area, which stretches from San Francisco to San Jose.

(There are an estimated 5,000 Malaysians in North California, which include Sacramento and other areas outside of Silicon Valley.)

“There was a fresh Master's graduate in biotech from a local university here. She doesn’t know any other Malaysian in a similar field, so she volunteered to be our Biotech Special Interest Group (SIG) manager.”

“With MPBA behind her, she got connected with the Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation and subsequently found other successful Malaysians in the industry. Subsequently, she organised the first Malaysian-centred biotech event in Silicon Valley.”

More promisingly, Haniza found that non-Malaysians were also attending MPBA events, as they wanted to see the opportunities available in Malaysia.

So far, the MPBA has about 100 members. About 90% of them are Malaysians while the rest are foreigners such as Singaporeans and Americans.

The MPBA is believed to be the only “professional” Malaysian organisation, as other groupings tend to focus mostly on social activities.

She is also intent on opening up chapters in other US cities. “I’ve got requests to have MPBA chapters in Arizona and South California,” said Haniza, 36.

Haniza, who has a business administration degree from Sacramento State University, was a general manager of a firm in Kuala Lumpur that deals in selling and servicing security digital recording systems until she married an American and moved to San Jose.

She found that Singaporeans are better known here compared to Malaysians.

“My wish is that people here will be more aware of our capabilities and opportunities. For our part, MPBA is promoting our events to the local public.

“I believe that Malaysia’s popularity will come in time especially when more and more Malaysians become successful in the Silicon Valley by heading their own companies or taking up top positions here.”

She admired a Singaporean programme that is collaboration between its government and the National University of Singapore.

“They send students who have entrepreneurial talent to come and intern with start-up companies in the Valley.

“The companies who take them in are now more aware of Singapore and its resources. I would love to have something like this happen with our top Malaysian universities.”

Almost all MPBA members are working professionals or business owners but some are homemakers, too.

“Some of them joined us for the social events but it’s becoming known to them that we can help them professionally too.”

She spoke of a food caterer, who had never met another Malaysian despite being here for five years.

“She is so happy to be part of the association, and made many friends and customers too!”

Haniza noted that many Malaysians here were in the food business.

“One of them has started to import Malaysian sauces and after being a sponsor of our event, she got a few orders from members who love her food.”

The MPBA, she said, was also the easiest link to the Malaysian government. “Right now, we are working with the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), Mida, Tourism Malaysia and the Consul General.

“Since we’re working and living here, we are the best connection for the Government to reach out to locals.”

Six-word memoir unleashes Americans’ creative impulses

SEASONS Of Love, the hit song from the long-running Broadway musical Rent, asks a question that has no right or wrong answer: How do you measure the life of a woman or man?

525,600 minutes;

How do you measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee;

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?

How do you measure a year in life?

So the lyrics go.

Now, a New York-based online magazine has dared Americans to sum up their life in six words.

Apparently, Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to tell a story within that limit and he wrote: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Smith magazine decided to give the idea a fresh twist. Thus the six-word memoir was born and Americans have been hooked ever since.

“We received at least 15,000 contributions,” said senior editor Rachel Fershleiser.

That led to the publication of Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for the past two weeks.

“Everybody wants an opportunity to tell his story. Sometimes, they are just not asked to do so,” Fershleiser said.

Those six-word submissions reflected all sides of humanity.

“It’s funny, it’s sad, it showed that people have a lot of resilience. They revealed their most private moments, how life isn’t what you always expected or planned and yet, things would work out,” she said in an interview.

“In and out of hot water,” is contributor Piper Kerman's take.

There is always the humour (“Carbohydrates call my name every day”); regrets (“Should have used condom that time”) and love (“Let’s just be friends, she said.” and “Fell in love. Married. Divorced. Repeat.”)

These sixers have become great conversation pieces.

“People talk about it in class, even in eulogies,” said Fershleiser, 28.

One church minister mentioned it in his column in a Canadian newspaper, asking the faithful to ponder about their relationship with God in six words.

Last month, The New York Times solicited the “joy of six” from its readers. Its blog has received more than 400 responses so far.

“More sex would have been nice,” Dan Stackhouse wrote. “Six words? Not sure I can,” went another posting.

Smith, a two-year-old online magazine, has organised book tours in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Austin to enthusiastic response.

It was the same scene on Tuesday when a memoir reading was held at an independent bookstore in New York City’s Nolita neighbourhood.

Contributors gamely shared their mini stories with others.

“I gave up looking for love,” one man said. This was followed by a woman who admitted that “secretly, I dream of my ex-boyfriend”.

Someone in the audience chipped in, trying to play matchmaker: “Have the two of you met?”

Smith magazine, so named because it is the most popular surname in the United States, is a site that celebrates the joy of storytelling. Its tagline: Everyone has a story.

It is now planning a second memoir written by children.

Sarah Morrow, a 23-year-old marketing personnel, knew about the memoir from one of Smith’s editors.

“I love it. It’s short, it makes it easy for people to express themselves,” she said. Her own personal narration? “Climbed mountains, didn’t like the view.”

“It is a reflection of my goals. Once I accomplished them, it didn't feel as great,” she explained.

So do you have what it takes to say it all in just six words?

“It takes desire, guts; and most of all, you have to be honest,” Fershleiser said.

Sometimes, words are just not enough. Or the less said the better. But for once, this is different. Six words, no more, no less.