Aren't there a lot of people that still weren't using personal computers by the end of the 80s? I was thinking of putting it in the 90s, but I'd put Internet there if I just had to pick one.
Cell phone in the 80s? How many people were using cell phones back then? I didn't even know that many people who were using cell phones by the end of the 90s.
Yeah, there's some difficulty with whether it's when the technology was invented or when it became ubiquitous and society-changing. The internet was invented in the 70s but didn't become a big deal with the 90s with the WWW.
By the end of the 1980s cell phones were well established (in North America), but primarily for business use. The consumer market was tapped in the mid-1990s (for example the Amigo plan introduced in 1994.
All travelers who enter the US on a visa or the visa-waiver program are fingerprinted on entry since shortly after 9/11. So don't feel to special about it. Of course the old line of "In the country where I am from they fingerprint only criminals" doesn't work. Only Brazil implemented a tit-for-tat, taking fingerprints from every US citizen who wants ot enter the country.
I got a secondary screening/interrogation when I tried to enter the US for 5 months for a vacation/poker trip. He had me pull out the contents of my wallet and he had a look at all the plastic I was carrying. He asked a couple of questions about 3 times and finally offered me a 3 month stay. I asked why not 5? He ask back, why I wanted 5. Because I have return ticket for that day. And he said okay with a shrug. Still makes me think that those screeners know what they are doing. And telling the truth is a good strategy there, they will eventually pick up a tell.
I am a German but live in the US. Up until I got my green card, I was fingerprinted when entering the US. I had to make an extra trip to a federal office 3 hours away to get fingerprinted when I applied for a green card.
Canadians are generally exempt from the fingerprinting process, but the border guards have discretion to refer Canadians for fingerprinting “if there is a concern about the nature of travel” (according to this DHS web page). See also the Wikipedia article on US-VISIT.
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Cell phone in the 80s? How many people were using cell phones back then? I didn't even know that many people who were using cell phones by the end of the 90s.
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I got a secondary screening/interrogation when I tried to enter the US for 5 months for a vacation/poker trip. He had me pull out the contents of my wallet and he had a look at all the plastic I was carrying. He asked a couple of questions about 3 times and finally offered me a 3 month stay. I asked why not 5? He ask back, why I wanted 5. Because I have return ticket for that day. And he said okay with a shrug. Still makes me think that those screeners know what they are doing. And telling the truth is a good strategy there, they will eventually pick up a tell.
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Canadians have never been subject to the fingerprinting.
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Sorry you got buttraped by border patrol. :(
Fuckin' Uncle Sam.
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