Arriving from London at Kennedy Airport last night was Ms. Lisa Virtue on Virgin Airlines flight 003. Certainly, there could be no way to bar her entry on grounds of moral turpitude.

But the new American government did find a way to humiliate her. They took her fingerprints and picture.

She was fingerprinted and had a mug shot taken because the government is trying to stop Osama bin Laden from entering the country.

She is a slim, lovely 28-year-old woman with brown hair and, in the damp darkness outside the terminal, with eyes that appeared light brown, and were glistening.

She is from Kent in England and flew here from London. She had been over there for the holidays. She lives in Greenwich Village and works for Calvin Klein clothes. Last night, she stood in the chill on this long, long line waiting for a cab. She was pulling a couple of suitcases that can last her the next year in New York.

"Why did they fingerprint you?" she was asked.

"I didn't like it," she said. "I told that to the man. He said because I had a visa I had to be fingerprinted."

"Then what did you say?"

"I told him I still didn't like it. He said, 'I don't like it, but it's my job.'"

"Was it because you're a suspected terrorist?"

"No."

"Are any of your family terrorists? Is your father a suspected terrorist?"

"No. No."

"Do you have a dangerous uncle?"

She laughed. Which she shouldn't have, for this was a major part of a new American life in which we have been living without realizing it: the first prints leading to a microchip in your head so they'll know what you're thinking.

This is all because of this nice, new, clean shaven, Bible quoting, psalm singing Ashcroft and his people. He is a walking symbol of the banality of evil.

Suddenly last night, Ms. Lisa Virtue from Virgin flight 003 was part of an impressive new government program called US-VISIT, which, the government says, "requires foreign visitors coming in here on a visa to have their two index fingers scanned and a digital photograph taken to verify their identity at the port of entry."

What do they match the prints and picture with? In Ms. Virtue's case, her pony picture from Kent.

Here I must pause and quote Tom Ridge, the director of homeland security. He's great. "Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in our government's commitment to securing our nation while upholding America's ideals about freedom of travel and the spirit of welcoming foreign visitors."

Of course you are welcome. Just stick your fingers in the slot because we want to know if you're a filthy terrorist.

A natural question is, what do they do with the fingerprints and pictures? They are being taken at 115 airports and 14 cruise ship terminals. They'll collect a few hundred thousand photos. The people who look at them will have their productivity slowed by cataracts. Of course somebody is going to slip a photo of bin Laden into the piles and it will cause Homeland Security people to faint.

"Did they tell you what they were going to do with your picture?" Lisa Virtue was asked.

"No."

"What do you think happens to it?"

"Shooo!" She nodded to the sky.

Now in the darkness the long, long line shuffled a foot or so at a time as cabs rushed up to get fares. I had no way of knowing how many of them had been fingerprinted; but there had to be many.

Watching them, you looked at the end of the America that the people who put this place together thought it should be.

And on this night, with your face turning cold, you thought of the morning in the heat and black cloud that changed it all.

The planes had hit the World Trade Center and both towers were gone and now the air was filled with sirens. Filled as it would be for days. Sirens from everywhere. Police cars from all corners of the city, and from the suburbs. Sirens. A Mount Vernon police car rushing down Broadway with its siren wailing and with the driver having no idea of where it was headed or what he could do when he got there. But being there was all that counted. Being there with the siren. The fire engines from everywhere and police and state police and Port Authority police and Westchester police and Nassau police.

The guys doing the work were silent. Firefighters and iron workers and operating engineers. But the cops in cars from Westchester had the siren going for them. Listen to me. I'm in charge of you.

Now from the street came a whistle. "You can't go there." You ask why. "Because you can't go there." The street is blocks from the turmoil. The guy with the whistle is from the Summit, New Jersey, police.

I knew after these sirens would come rules. You can't go here, you can't go there. This location is frozen. And it took a while, much longer than I thought it would, but finally last night, here was Ms. Lisa Virtue being fingerprinted and now the whole thing was in front of you: the placing of this beautiful country into a cage.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

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