Nexus Card

My folks have one, but they spend 3 or 4 months in the States every month.

NEXUS and FAST are joint Canada-US programs. You will just join the ranks of Canada Customs and Revenue Agency's databanks, NSA databank, etc etc

For your edification, and eventual enjoyment :

“The Canada Customs & Revenue Agency is creating a giant, extremely detailed database containing personal information of all Canadian air passengers for surveillance purposes. I twice wrote to the Hon. Elinor Caplan last year and called on her to dismantle this unwarranted surveillance of ordinary Canadians, which is slated to expand to all forms of travel to or from Canada. I do not oppose use of such data to identify passengers for secondary screening or anti-terrorist purposes, but the database as it exists if far too open-ended and intrusive.”
David Loukidelis
Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia

http://www.privcom.gc.ca/media/le_030130_2_e.asp

Profiling 101

Don't do anything wrong then you have noting to worry about. I have had had a Nexus for the past few years and an Inspass before that. yes you are giving up on personal privacy for speedier customs processing...its a trade off. To me well worthwhile for the time I save especially after landing at YYZ and say a PIA 747 landed ahead of me. The 45 minutes I save is worth more to me then the FBI and boder security having my fingerprints...the decision is really that simple.

I have always said that I would stop going there if I ever had to do this.

Then you engaged in the same dumb rhetoric as everyone else, and are now backpedalling frantically when it comes to actually following through on your statements.

Yes, you're giving up a lot of privacy rights, if you care about that. Otherwise, what #3 says.

Yes, I'm justifying and my "justification" is that I think the day is coming when we are all going to have to give our fingerprints and do the eyeball scan anyway (maybe even to our own government), just like the rest of the world does now to enter the US. Plus, there are times where convenience, or also in my case, finances (a $530 airfare to Costa Rica as opposed to $1400 going through Toronto), make it very easy to justify.

I also know people denied entry, or grilled for half an hour or more (missing or almost missing flights at US Immigration pre-clearance at YVR), because of, well, who knows what reason as they won't tell you. Such a dilemma!

I'l probably do it but it sure makes me feel like a "compromiser."

There isn't a reason - it's because the border guard decided that Person X would be grilled that day.

Which, ultimately, is what it comes down to. In the absence of a criminal record (and even sometimes with one), the only thing that will hold you up, or not, at the border is your personal and individual interaction with the person behind the border guard desk.

If it makes you feel any better, the Canadian bureaucracy couldn't organize or keep track of a bake sale at a local elementary school, let alone eyeball scans or fingerprints. Yes, you may have to submit the info at some point, but it will disappear into the vast unknown somewhere (perhaps a warehouse in Miramichi, who knows). And the US government is even worse. So I wouldn't worry too much about your privacy rights, because your personal info will be lost long before you appear at any border crossing, or before the government can do something menacing with it (like, for instance, file it away properly).

So, despite all the claims about fancy security systems and registries - ultimately, it's really about that one single face-to-face interaction with the border guard. Be polite, presentable, and friendly (but not overly so). If you're young, white and good-looking, even better.

My parents just got theirs and have used it once. I plan on getting mine now that my passport has been renewed. Personally, I'm not too concerned about them having my eyeball scan etc as I've never had nor intend having a run-in with the law.
My parents have only used theirs once so far and the border crossing was not lined up in any way that day so they didn't get to feel smug. If I get any further feedback I'll let you know.

"I heard" that "they" have a computer profile of every person's movements on the internet. It wouldn't be so hard for "them" to do this, since when I signed up for a yahoo address or something like that to get a Flickr account, somehow "the system" knew how to link to all my other seemingly unrelated logins and webpages. It was a little scary. If they can just correlate my identity "they" now have, with the IP address of my computer, and then track all my movements, it seems feasible. Is this true? I imagine the government could use this to make political profiles of people and eventually deny entry to or harass those they feel do not uphold the beliefs and values of the country in question, even if they have no criminal record or previous run-ins with border security.

I have one, though I don't think I can use it anymore now I am not a resident of Canada (I have to check on that).

It's very handy if you travel between Canada and the U.S. more than a couple times a year. As I was often travelling for business, being able to arrive at the airport on a Monday morning and not have to wait for 45 in the USA pre-clearance customs line was a godsend.

As for what they can do with the information, the US already had my fingerprints, as a border guard once took it when I was getting a NAFTA visa, even though I don't think I was required to give them. As for the retina scan, given that I am unlikely to leave my eye at the scene of a crime, I figure there isn't much more information I am giving them.

The biggest thing that bothered me in dealing with the USA was when I had to file taxes, and one of the forms you need to fill out asks for all your bank accounts, even if the money in them wasn't earned in the US. That I felt was very intrusive of them. But unless you are working there, you probably don't need to worry about that.