Thanks Chimpy. Another one of your bright ideas, eh?

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&ncid=716&e=9&u=/ap/20040207/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_fingerprinting

2nd American in Brazil Fined for Gesture

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A second American agreed to pay a hefty fine for making an obscene gesture during fingerprinting procedures for U.S. citizens in Brazil, police said Saturday.


Douglas A. Skolnick won't be allowed to leave the southeastern resort town of Foz do Iguacu until he pays the equivalent of $17,200 for raising his middle finger when he was fingerprinted and photographed, said federal police spokesman Marcos Koren.


The customs requirements were imposed in response to similar U.S. rules for citizens of Brazil and many other countries. The United States says its rules will help prevent terrorists from entering the country.


Skolnick, who arrived in Brazil on Friday with a tour group, was taken before a judge early Saturday after being arrested and jailed for hours on the charge of showing contempt to authorities.

more

American citizen Douglas Alan Skolnick, 55, a retired worker from New Jersey, sits in a cell after being arrested for allegedly making an obscene gesture while being fingerprinted and photographed at the international airport in Foz de Iguacu, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday, Feb. 6, 2004. It was the second incident of its kind in three weeks, after Brazil imposed new entry rules in response to similar rules in the United States for citizens of Brazil and other countries whose citizens need visas to enter. (AP Photo/Aurea Cunha/Agencia Estado)

[ithacan]

1. got off light...

imagine what the US border guys would do if a furner did that to them...

[oneighty]

2. Poor guy.

He should have learned some manners before visiting a strange land.

180

[Bozola]

3. If only he'd have been a member of the Green party

He'd have been arrested at the airline departure counter and would have got to spend his vacation in a nice clean Amuuurikan jail instead of that unsightly foreign one.

[Cleita]

4. Excuse me for not being sympathetic but Americans are

notorious for entering other countries and thumbing their noses at those countries' laws. Maybe the law is ridiculous but as a guest in another country Americans should not show contempt to authorities. This is especially true in South America where such affronts are as bad as causing a Japanese person to lose face.

I have had to endure such payback in the past too. Back in the fifties, when a plane landed in the Miami, FL airport from South America, all passengers without American passports were herded into a room and a nurse came by and shoved a thermometer in their mouths to take their temperature. It was not lost on the foreigners that the American passengers were not treated that way. When leaving Miami and arriving to Chile, my destination, I found myself subjected to the same routine by Chilean authorities before I was cleared to enter the country.

Another time every American was vaccinated for small pox, but the Chileans were not. It was payback I know for their nationals being treated shabbily by Americans when entering their country, but we Americans endured it humbly and this is what this moron should have done.

[JoeMemphis]

5. No sympathy for him, here, either

Americans travelling abroad have to respect and obey the laws of the country they're visiting. Period. We can't pretend we are covered by our Constitutional rights outside the US borders.

Sometimes, folks can't fully enjoy our Constitutional rights here at home, for that matter (especially when protesting "free trade"), thanks to the * Administration.

Nope. I have no sympathy for that clown Skolnick. If he wants to protest Brazilian or U.S. policy, he should do it the right way -- through our elected officials, through the Brazilian rep in the US, etc.

[NJCher]

6. Get real

Nearly $20 grand for flipping the bird? I don't think so.

Cher

[JoeMemphis]

9. I think it's unreasonable too ... but ...

... we are still obligated to follow the laws of the country we're in.

[DiverDave]

7. Who cares?

make him pay.
If you go to someones house for dinner, do you spit on the carpet?
Maybe the "ugly american" will think twice.

[Mari333]

8. I agree

I was sooo embarassed when I went to Ireland and some USer on the tram in Dublin started talking loudly and behaving like he owned the place..gads..
I went to a few pubs (this was during Clinton years) and I was resepctful and the cabbies loved my husband and I because, as one put it
"You arent like most Americans ...a lot of them come in here and brag and tell us how important they are...whats with that? Have you got a lot of fanatics over there?"
OY!
anyway, we were courteous and loved being there. Right now, I wish I lived there. Wonderful to be in a "civilized" country..hard to come back here tho.