FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping

[WhiteFeather]

another story same topic

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=4243666

FBI Preps Award for Biometric Database
Lockheed, Northrop, IBM Vying for Multibillion-Dollar Contract for FBI Biometric Database
By DAN CATERINICCHIA
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON


Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and IBM are vying for a multibillion-dollar contract to build a database for fingerprints and other biometric information that the FBI is set to award this week.

Lockheed Martin Corp. built and maintains the FBI's current 10-fingerprint database and some analysts consider the nation's largest defense contractor the favorite to win the Next Generation Identification system contract mainly due to its incumbent status.

But because the new system is expected to include other identifiers, including palm prints, iris scans and facial recognition, the teams led by Northrop Grumman Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. remain strong contenders, said Stanford Group Co. analyst Jeremy Grant. Northrop's team includes BearingPoint Inc., General Dynamics Corp. and Raytheon Co.

An FBI spokesman on Tuesday said the contract is expected to be awarded this week but would not disclose its financial or other terms.

The deal is viewed as a major upgrade to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System and should help the agency more easily share data supporting anti-terrorism efforts with domestic government offices and international partners. It will include data on known criminals and terrorists, as well as information on foreign visitors to the U.S. whose fingerprints and digital photographs were collected under a separate Department of Homeland Security program that monitors people entering the U.S. via air, land and sea.

Privacy advocates, however, say Congress must ensure that the FBI system will not infringe on citizens' rights before the government spends more than a billion dollars on it.

"This system is not ready for prime time," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Congress must ask tough questions about the impact on the privacy rights of Americans."

[dogngun]

"Congress must ask tough questions..."
Those assholes are too busy "investigating" the conduct of baseball players and counting their money to ask any really "tough questions'.

I used to be a State employee, and the institution where I worked wanted to tape and monitor EVERY phonecall made into or out of the facility. This was to ensure that no one was making personal calls.

When is was pointed out it would require three shifts of maybe five to ten people each, plus supervision (of course) just to listen, management said, Oh, well-nevermind." and installed TV monitors in the halls to oversee staff instead.

THey all want all the power they can get, for no real reason and with no serious thought about what they are really doing. I really hate to loose more and more freedom just because the people "in charge" are just power hungry and stupid.

It's time to start getting rid of some of this excess crap.

mark