Airlines balk at fingerprinting departing foreigners

0 Comments | USA TODAY, March, 2008 | by Thomas Frank

WASHINGTON -- Airlines are protesting a government plan that would require them to take fingerprints of foreign travelers as they fly out of the USA, saying it could create massive lines at airport check-in counters.

Congress has required that the 33million foreigners a year coming into U.S. airports be fingerprinted when they arrive and leave the country but did not specify who should take the prints.

The Homeland Security Department, which currently fingerprints foreigners coming into U.S. airports, wants airlines to be responsible for taking fingerprints as these travelers leave.

The International Air Transport Association urged the Bush administration to kill the plan. "This is a government function, not to be outsourced to the private sector,"...