FBI wants to build a massive biometrics database
"...there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." -- Mark Twain
WITH THE EXCUSE that it wants to keep track of criminals and terrorists, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) plans to collect a massive biometrics database of people's physical characteristics, right down to the smallest details.
In coming days, the FBI is expected to award a $1 billion, 10-year contract to develop such a national database that will contain all kinds of biometric data, including photographs, fingerprints, palm prints, retinal scans, and even scar and tatoo mappings.
The biometric data collected will be linked to personal information including names, addresses and driver's licence and social security numbers.
In addition, such a database would reasonably be expected to also catalogue detail transactional data such as job applications, airplane boardings, border crossings and contacts with police and other law officers, in addition to any arrests and convictions.
Predictably, the official who will likely be in charge of Big Brother's biometrics database is all for it. The FBI's Biometric Services section chief, Kimberly Del Greco, said that 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."
Citizen privacy advocates at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) aren't convinced, and are anything but enthusiastic. Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project, said, "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."
The FBI has reportedly promised to protect individual's personal information and only collect information and biometric data on criminals and those applying for employment in sensitive positions.
But the ACLU's Steinhardt doesn't believe the FBI will be able to restrain itself from gathering and collating more data. "This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals," Steinhardt said. "Now we're talking about large swaths of the population -- workers, volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it's going to be everybody."
If the FBI really wants to collect fingerprints, retinal scans and tatoo maps on criminals and people in sensitive jobs, perhaps it ought to start with everyone in the US Congress, all the corporate lobbyists in Washington DC, all Federal and state judges and prosecutors, and everyone working for the FBI and all other Federal government agencies, as well as all the personnel in state and local law enforcement agencies. Only then should the FBI start taking citizens' biometrics.
If the FBI can get all those people to go along with this plan, more power to it. ยต
L'INQ
CNN
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The ACLU has never had Americans interest in mind, they have their own agenda.

Their name could better be described as Americans for Control of Legislature and all Us population.

While they "seem" too be trying to protect privacy, they are tying the FBI's hands behind their back. They already keep criminals fingerprints, dna and other useful information on tracking them, why not put it in a usable form?

yes I think their should be limits on their power, but i also don't think the ACLU has any business making them.


$1 billion to develop a database? Yes, we can clearly see that Congress is the criminal class we should be tracking!
I think I'll pass on allowing the US government to collect my biometrics. No, in fact, I'm sure I won't allow this.
Honestly, this probably would be a helpful database, the biggest concern, though, would be the security of the information and the strict regulation of whose information is to be stored in this database.

As an FYI, all Federal employees, right down to the janitors, have their fingerprints and DNA on file while they are employed and for 25-30 years after they leave Federal employment, please do some research.
For posteriority of course! I'm quite sure that bum bags and fanny packs will be chock full of pony wonga for this special agent's patootie crap.
It is bad enough that most people have enough apathy to stand around and let this kind of thing happen but then there are people like Bryan posting here who think this is a good idea! 

My god people do you all want just want to be forced to conform and have daddy tell you when it is safe and what you can and cannot do? The terrorists have already won if your reaction is to cower in fear and then volunteer to have your government take away your rights so that your goverment starts to look more and more like the oppressive regimes the terrorists have in their own countries of origin to control their citizens. 

is there really any stopping the government? i don't much care for this idea
D-Wave Systems is doing this at a level that will allow hand held devices the ability to do facial / retinal recognition without you knowing about this. http://www.dwavesys.com/

Have you already been scanned as a test and you didn't even know it... Be afraid of the men in Black who no longer work for uncle sambo. 

Hotel Tango
I just can't help thinking that the hardened criminals must be drooling abundantly at the prospects of getting their mitts on a laptop full of biometric data.
Not to mention the heady feeling of sticking a trojan in the system of an FBI worker, and sending the data from inside.
On a more critical note, to keep a terrorist outside with this database, wouldn't you need to catch him first so as to get his biometric data ?
Or do they expect the terrorists to nicely send in the data themselves in the proper format for import ?
Lets think about this for a second.

How much space would you need for that information per person?
Lets assume that every profile would contain 3-5 megabytes of information.
That should ensure an acceptable resolution on portrait, biometric scans as well as an iris scan.
It should also be able to hold large quantities of written text.

That's anywhere between 800 TB and 1,4 PB of information.
that's assuming they want all American citizens on that database

So that's $600 000-$1 000 000 just for the hard drives assuming they want backup and secondary backup systems.
Also assuming a 20% rebate for quantity order

WOW
I hope that "we the people" can access our own data. I'd like to find out how my prostrate and colon are doing without having to see a doctor.
Why is it that they are thinking of awarding a contract this big after the Virtual Case File fiasco, wasting anywhere between $100 - $200 million dollars before the plug was pulled on a project originally budgeted for roughly $400 million?
Yet somehow the NYPD Real-Time Crime Center project was completed for $11 million...

Tax dollars hard at work!
I'm all for this system. Why, you ask?

I work at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, and as I enter and leave I have to key in my Social Security Number to the console. Not to put down my co-workers(and myself, by proxy), but what better place to find desperate criminals wanting to steal your identity than a fast food restaurant?

It's much more difficult to fake fingerprints, even more difficult to fake palm prints, and I'd be very interested in hearing of a successful way to fake retinal scans, short of removing the person's eyeball and carrying it around.