Smile for the camera. Over here. Prints Please. Those are the instructions that will be greeting foreigners to the U.S. Monday. And every day after. And that will cause more and more flight delays for the rest of us. It's all part of United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US_VISIT).

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says the goal of the US VISIT program is to track the millions of people who come to the United States every year on business, student and tourist visas -- and to use the information as a tool against terrorists.

....Critics say the broad-reaching program will cause unnecessary travel delays and may never prove to be effective. "There's so much information in such volumes that there's a limit to what any analyst can absorb," said Larry Johnson, an aviation security consultant.

Faiz Rehman, president of the National Council of Pakistani-Americans, points to the disruption in travel. "Without proper training, there will be long lines, there will be missed flights, there will be people who would be wrongly stopped," Rehman said.

The backlash has already begun. Authorites in Brazil have declared that all American visitors to Brazil will meet the same conditions.

Will the program work?

Tim Edgar, a critic of the program and legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said it will not take the place of improved intelligence gathering. "The problem with 9/11 is that we didn't know who the terrorists were," Edgar said. "We could have put them through this system and they would have gotten through without any problem."

What's it costing? Just $368 million.

For an interesting view, take a look at this article, At What Price Security from Liberal Slant.