[Columbine]

I hate this guy too. He's overly aggressive in his tactics and it ends up looking like the worst brand of "Gaijin Whine". Every time he speaks, I almost expect him to end his sentences with "in America!" He's not a human rights activist in my book. If he were, he'd be working more to make people aware Japan's sometimes awful treatment of refugees or the 'working poor', or japanese nationals who fall through gaps in the system and I don't hear him doing anything of the sort.
In fact he doesn't talk about ANY human rights issue of real substance, he just niggles over how bureaucratic documents are handed out and clouds the issue. To top it all, I have this feeling that when he talks about 'foreigners' in Japan, I think he's only talking about those from America, or Europe or Australia. I can't see him going to talk to say, Bangladeshi immigrants working below the breadline and championing for their problems with living in Japan and racism. He'd rather have a moan about how he's discriminated against, you know, being asked if he can use chopsticks all the time is SUCH a hardship, like being asked to carry some ID. O, but doesn't your heart just ~bleed~ for him.

I'm seconding nyororin on the paperwork issue. It's a nightmare with all the paper forms and stuff in triplicate and copies and urgh... it's so slow and unwieldy. It's also the same reason why UK passports now come with a chip in them. Previously during check in, they'd have to enter each and every passenger's info into the system by hand. Now they just swipe it and the queues are much shorter as a result.

And it's nigh on impossible that any government would take this REID business to human micro-chipping standards. Why they hell would the bother when nature provides us with several very good stamps already; retinas, DNA and fingertips, all for no extra charge.