Both Susan Menadue-Chun's letter, "SPRs have suffered enough," and William Wetherall's letter, "Exemptions not based on nationality," on Nov. 15 provided thought-provoking information and context to the Ministry of Justice's biometric data-collection program directed at "terrorists" trying to enter Japan.
Neither of them, however, condemned the law itself, which exempts millions of people from processing, while unjustly leaving others under a cloud of suspicion. At present, those who pose no risk, implied by the exemptions, are the Japanese themselves, Special Permanent Residents (SPRs), diplomats, those under 16, and SOFA (U.S. military) personnel. Anyone else ranks as a possible terrorist or terrorist's agent.
Menadue-Chun's letter was moving, but I got the impression she will "reluctantly" resign herself to accept the law provided that her family is exempted and spared "one more humiliation" -- as if laws may be endured as long as they dish out humiliation "fairly," first to some people then to others.
This law discriminates against those left off the exemption list by implying that they are the "bad ones," that they represent danger, and that it's all right to take their most intimate identifying traits, scan them into a computer and entrust the data to a "stateless corporation"!
It must feel so good to be exempted from this fiasco. It's hard to blame those among the exempted for being afraid to rock the boat. But the number of people who want no more exemptions, no more discrimination, no more unequal application of the law -- just its repeal -- is growing.
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