U.S. is building database on Iraqis

[babylonsister]

Boy, this sounds like it will be effective. How do they weed out the ones who've been murdered? Will it be as successful as our DHS database is?

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070713/1a_lede13.art.htm

U.S. is building database on Iraqis
Biometrics key part of tracking suspects

By Thomas Frank
USA TODAY

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military is taking fingerprints and eye scans from thousands of Iraqi men and building an unprecedented database that helps track suspected militants.

U.S. troops are stopping Iraqis at checkpoints, workplaces and sites where attacks have recently occurred, and inputting their personal data using handheld scanners or specially equipped laptops. In several neighborhoods in and around Baghdad, troops have gone door to door collecting data.

The rapidly expanding program has raised privacy concerns at the Pentagon, although it has met little resistance from Iraqis. U.S. commanders say the data help to keep suspected militants out of neighborhoods and to identify suspects in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. Iraq has no other reliable ID system.

"It helps enormously," Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview. "It enables us to identify individuals connected with various activities."

This year, U.S. troops in Iraq are to receive 3,800 handheld scanners, up from 200 now in use, to equip every squad in the country, said Col. Michael Meese, an adviser to Petraeus. The devices can both collect and display data, letting troops view someone's background and decide whether he should be detained.

more...

[snappyturtle]

1. Yep, and the next thing you know

we'll hear of how wildly successful this program is in making Iraq safer and why it should be used as part of our Homeland Security. (This is off subject but I really have a hard time with the term "homeland".....gives me the creeps.)

[ThomWV]

2. That means they must have finished up on the one for Americans

Every fact about you is recorded somewhere and someone is reading it right now.