RSS 2.0 FeedReport: FBI Wants To Create Massive Biometric Database
by Doug MataconisCNN is reporting this afternoon that the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to put together a massive database filed with biometric information from American citizens:
CLARKSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) — The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.
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The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information — from palm prints to eye scans.
Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI’s Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.”
But it’s unnerving to privacy experts.
“It’s the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Project.
Sometimes, all that paranoia about the approaching surveillance state is worth listening to……
The FEDs will get nothing for their 1 billion dollars and let us hope it would become as the Star Wars project. Requiring a leap in technology to be able to implement fully.
Comment by VRB — February 4, 2008 @ 6:50 pmWhoa. A little behind the times aren’t we? The NYT reported on this already.
Comment by Justin Bowen — February 4, 2008 @ 8:14 pmNH is looking better for my future residence, if only for some minor piece of mind on the local & state levels, while the insanity of big government continues to roll on at the federal level, as America is reduced to Toontown. Although, If I grew a beard and start calling myself a “man of letters”, Alaska or Washington might be more appropriate.
Although, one hopes that the bureaucracies that have piled up over the years just tend to get more inept, letting this surveillance society roll in with an ineffective whimper. BYOS (Bring Your Own Sledgehammers).
I wouldn’t bet on it though, not while the Pentagon is spouting such gems as “treating the Internet as an enemy weapons system.” and Time-Warner rolling in the two tiered internet.
“Have’s and have’s not’s together at last… brutally engaged in mortal combat….”
Comment by Nitroadict — February 5, 2008 @ 2:35 am