Reader David M. Rosenberg reports:
A judge in Rio de Janeiro has accepted the petition of the city to suspend the registration of photos and fingerprints of US tourists. For the time being, the decision only has effect in Rio (I’m not sure if it refers to the entire state of Rio de Janeiro, or just the municipality of the same name), but could be extended to the entire country. According to the press report I just read, the judge’s opinion was as follows:
“If the United States of America has reasons to adopt the measures being questioned by the Federal Public Minister, then Brazil, without a plausible motive, seeing that the fear of terrorist attacks, happily, is not a part of [our] daily life, cannot do the same solely based on reciprocity because it would cause losses of millions of dollars to the national economy, and not just to the petitioner, by way of the flight of tourists confronted with restrictions on entering [Brazil] who will seek other destinations, and, consequently, the loss of the flow of North American tourists and the incalculable amount of money they would spend here.”
UPDATE: David M. Rosenberg reports further:
The government of Brazil is now arguing that today’s decision by the judge in Rio should not take effect due to the publication of an executive decision (authorized by the president of the Republic) mandating that the collection of photos and fingerprints for Americans continue to take place throughout the entire country of Brazil. A working group has been formed to study “rules for the control of the entrance of foreigners” that is mandated to conclude its work and make a report within 30 days. The executive order requires that the Federal Police (roughly equivalent to a combination of our FBI and ICE) continue to archive the photos and fingerprints while this working group is in existence.
According to the Ministry of Justice, today’s decision by the judge in Rio didn’t prohibit the collection of the photos and fingerprints; it just said that the Federal Police weren’t obligated to collect this data. The publication of the executive order makes this obligation explicit. At this point I don’t have a copy of the judge’s complete decision (I’ll look for it). The solicitor who made the original petition for the data collection has stated that due to the executive order, the Rio judge’s decision is moot, however I haven’t found a response from the city of Rio de Janeiro which brought the [successful?] action to have the data collection suspended.
Both judges (the one in Matto Grosso who ordered the collection, and the one in Rio who ordered it suspended) are federal judges. At this point, I think you will need somebody with some Brazilian legal training to help sort out the issues here, but it has clearly entered the realm of politics.
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