Its not the disposable one's who I'm worried about

George Jonas at the National Post has an article where he says the Biometric systems the US has implemented (foreign visitors have to be photographed and fingerprinted when entering) will not do any good because the new terrorists are disposable. They come on one way missions and don't care if the US takes their picture or finger prints them, they are going to die in the attack anyway.

That is true for the ones mounting the attack. However, before an attack can be launched, you have to have the planners and the operational folks enter the country first. And these are the one's who you want to catch anyway.

Its the planners and the thinkers who have to scout out where to attack, set up the safe houses, secure the explosives and get the money in and out so the attack can take place. The suicide bomber can't do that, they are not trained to do so. Why spend time and money training someone how to do all that when they will only use it once?

So will biometrics be a cure all and prevent future attacks all by themselves? Of course not. Can it be an effective tool to help catch the planners and thinkers who have to make multiple trips to plan and get ready to execute attacks? Absolutely.

There is no magic bullet to preventing terrorist attacks, but you want to use all the tricks you have so if/when the bad guys get through one security system, they run afoul with another.