FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics

MacRonin sends us to the Washington Post for a story about the FBI's plans for a large biometric identification database. The Post also has a chart detailing the characteristics of the different methods of identification. We discussed the ethics of a similar situation a few months ago. Quoting the Post: "Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law."

Comments

Sigh

[Bayoudegradeable]

I can't get this ending line out of my head... "He loved Big Brother."

Re:Sigh

[jacquesm]

I think the FBI simply wants a bigger haystack :)

It really amazes me how everybody seems to think that more information is key, whereas I think that *better* information is key. Datamining really is an advanced way of searching for the needle in that haystack and if you throw tons of non-relevant data in there you've just made your job that much harder. The big trick is to try to increase the quality of the data without missing important bits. Trawling all the grandmothers credit card transactions is not going to increase the S/N ratio.

Re:Sigh

[fyngyrz]

From the story:

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

Orwell was an optimist. The slide into complete loss of privacy, personal liberties, and any chance at atonement for making mistakes, intentional or otherwise, is far more insidious then he ever dreamed — and it is going to be far more complete than he imagined. Our country stands for nothing; we are powerless to change anything; the politicians and their lapdog agencies run rampant. I am ashamed.

From your post:

if you throw tons of non-relevant data in there you've just made your job that much harder.

The data is relevant, don't kid yourself. Your retina print, fingerprints, blood type, genetic details... what tracking these things in this way really means is a profound hardening of classes; felons will always be felons, that time you got caught throwing toilet paper on the courthouse will never, ever come off your record, your political affiliations in college will always, always constrain your future job opportunities and more.

A society that cannot forgive is a society that is lost, as far as I am concerned. A society that marks people specifically so that it can class them has reached the approximate social level of pond scum. There is little - if any - difference between the stars the Jews were forced to wear and a database that marks an individual for an infraction they have long ago atoned for. If the thesis is that one can never atone for an error, mis-step or intentional antisocial act, then it is flawed to begin with.

None of which will stop, or even slow down, this trend. When every liberty is up for trading in return for a claim of improved security, when every freedom is deemed too risky to the body politic, when every over-stated threat causes the public to whimper and keep their children locked inside, the Rubicon has well and truly been crossed. Felons! Terrorists! Pedophiles! Pornography! Drugs! None of these "threats" do a fraction of the damage as the "solutions" America has come to, and is working towards.

Orwell was indeed an optimist.

Re:Sigh

[fyngyrz]

Want change? Vote Ron Paul in the republican nomination.

Assuming he can be elected - which is a stretch - having gotten to the post, he'll be able to end the Iraq war. He'll be able to modify a fair amount of our foreign policy, this is an area that a president has a fair amount of autonomy in. However, with a comprised-as-usual congress and senate, most of the rest of the effect he will be able to have will consist of fireside chats with the public; even vetos will be easily defeated by politicians - on both sides of the aisle - he has little or nothing in common with.

Mind you, I'm voting for Paul, though there are significant planks in his platform I disagree with. This is because overall, he is the most honest and the closest to what I see as the original spirit of the country. However, because of the above, I have absolutely no fear that the area I disagree with him the most on - healthcare - will be in any way affected by his being president. The words "lame duck" don't even begin to describe what I think a Paul presidency would reflect. Good for healthcare; bad for everything else.

Re:Sigh

[BornAgainSlakr]

Please stop with the Ron Paul crap. The only thing I can figure about the Ron Paul fascination is that he is different and that is how far the bar has been lowered. He is not John Jackson or Jack Johnson (to quote Futurama), so people are flocking to him. The problem is, he is a die hard libertarian and naive to boot. Someone who believes that the government should be sold off in a fire sale because corporations with a profit-motive can provide those services cheaper and better is naive at best. Not that there are not instances where that is true, but just saying, as he as said on national TV, that profit-motive fixes everything is ridiculous. Now, surely he would not be able to enact even a mere fraction of his beliefs, but just having another four years with someone as naive as Bush scares me.

Besides, I am not sure why anyone believes that there is a candidate that can bring about real change. Real change needs to start with things like amending the Constitution to put term limits on Congress, or all elected officials for that matter. Power corrupts always, and those people have to be rotated out before we will see change. The problem there is: good luck getting Congress to start the ball rolling on that one.

Re:Sigh

[jacquesm]

I disagree, I think real change will start with something very simple, no more campaign financing by corporations. Not a cent. Government for the PEOPLE.

Re:Sigh

[sgt_doom]

The funny thing is, the person who recommended Ron Paul actually believes that there is something called "democracy" operating in America today. Seriously, all elections, at least going back to Eisenhower, have been bought (probably even earlier, for all I know).

Now Joe Kennedy obviously purchased his son's presidential election utilizing the help of Mafia elements, Texas oilmen, etc., but John either didn't get the memo or ignored his father and worked primarily on behalf of the citizenry.

Which is why he was wacked......similary as was Martin Luther King (coming out against the Vietnam War) and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy (running on an anti-war platform).

The election has already been purchased - the dems nominee will be Clinton/Richardson - and although I haven't been paying any attention to the Repuke side, it will probably be Guiliani/Thompson.

Re:Sigh

[fyngyrz]

So you know he's not electable, so what's the point of voting for him? Especially when you end with the line "Good for healthcare; bad for everything else."

The point of voting for him is to get the Iraq war over; to have a president that will engage the public in four years of constitutionally grounded dialog; to have a president that will act with honor and integrity; to have a president that will act to undo the executive orders that the previous ones have inflicted upon us; to have a president that actually acts - presidential. Someone who understands what state's rights are; someone who understands what the commerce clause was for. Someone who will not rubber-stamp continuous federal budget growth. Someone who will replace those currently in the supreme court with constitutionally strong, honorable and hopefully at least a little bit younger people if the opportunity arises.

When I said good for healthcare, bad for everything else, that is pendant upon acts of congress and the senate, not acts of the president. So it would not reflect on the president, it will reflect upon the senate and the congress - only instead of dead silence in the media, as we have now, we'll have a president speaking out as to what is wrong, and who is doing the wrong.

The system is broken. I expect that to be strongly highlighted by the juxtaposition of an honorable president and a dishonorable congress and senate. I don't have to agree with every plank Paul stands for (or any other politician) in order to see that he alone out of the field of current candidates stands for those things that — in the past — actually made the United States a great country.

I think the issue of federal healthcare is both obvious and inevitable. Obvious in that the constitution says that the specific charter of the federal government is to provide for the welfare and tranquility of the citizens. That's part of the first sentence of the constitution. Inevitable in that when a population that cannot afford to obtain healthcare must stand by and watch others receive it and live, longer, healthier lives, you're going to have a continuous, difficult to ignore pressure to reform the tort, insurance, care-giving and drug industries. Paul's position is wrong here, and when you're actually wrong, people can provide the rational and logical arguments why you're wrong. In this case, you can add extremely high pressure emotional and moral arguments as well. Because Paul actually is an honorable man, even though he is a doctor, I remain hopeful that he will eventually see the error of his ways. If not, as I mentioned earlier, the fact remains that a president cannot prevail using legal means against a determined congress and senate in domestic matters. And unlike Bush, Clinton and the rest of the candidates, I have every reason to believe that Paul will behave with honor, according to the law, and without subterfuge. We have his congressional record to examine, and it is that of a man who is precisely who he says he is.

The only other candidate I would even remotely consider voting for is Kucinich. But I think Paul is considerably more electable and would serve the country better by attempting to make us face the fact that what the federal government has become is unconstitutional, consequently illegal, and wholly un-American in nature.

I think the media is doing all it can to hold the man down by ignoring the fact that of the people who know about him, basically some chunks of young people who are active in social networking on the Internet, Paul has roused a degree of support rarely seen in politics. Odds are that if he can get his positions out to the general public, at least the people on the right side of the IQ Gaussian will realize the man actually talks sense. About half of the eligible public doesn't vote in the first place, so winning takes about 25% of the voting population. I think that's possible, although very difficult. It may be m

Re:Sigh

[vertinox]

Someone who believes that the government should be sold off in a fire sale because corporations with a profit-motive can provide those services cheaper and better is naive at best.

Here's the deal. I support Ron Paul not because he would do any of that (He couldn't even if he wanted to because of congress) but he would most likley veto everything and cause a government shut down.

The problem is that congress simply passes laws non-stop without much reading or thinking about what they are passing. Doesn't matter which side of aisle you are on because generally its much of the same from both sides. If we could have some sort of delay in the law creation process it would at least give the nation some breathing room before the next DMCA, Patriot Act, and whatever law that takes away more rights or makes the economic system more complicated.

Remember, when Gingrich and Clinton shutdown the government. Sort of the same thing will happen and things actually improved because of that for a while.

Even if we could have just 4 years of this, I really think we will at least postpone a massive influx of laws.

Somehwat scary

[proudfoot]

This is definitely something scary. Many employers might require you to hand over your prints to the FBI - but at the same time, you don't exactly want government to have everything on you if haven't committed a crime. Wasn't their a bill which was designed to prohibit enforceable gathering of biometric data by employers?

This is disturbing

[HangingChad]

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

You can get arrested for anything these days and now the FBI is going to become your employers watchdog? I've seen some dickish, big brother behavior since 9-11 but this tops the suck pyramid.

Re:This is disturbing

[iknownuttin]

Yeah, and if you're arrested by mistake or acquitted after trial, no one will care. They'll just see some entry in the FBIs database and assume the worst. I think there should be some way that someone who's been falsely accused to get some compensation for not being able to work ever again. Let's face it, if you have any sort of criminal record - true or false - you can never get a job, loan, etc... your life is in effect ruined. And this database will make that much easier for it to be done.

Re:This is disturbing

[ScrewMaster]

The thing is, this is less about national security than it is about risk avoidance.

Companies that do business with people, and organizations that hire people, wish to avoid risk. In principle, this is just an extension of the way the American credit system works. There, your entire financial history is available to anyone that wants to decide if you can be trusted. It used to be, the deadbeat customer was a normal cost of doing business. In today's world, companies large and small have the credit bureaus to track us for them. However, at least there if you keep your nose clean and wait enough years, your past misdeeds will no longer haunt you. Expect that limit to be removed at some point, because obviously people that can't handle money well are threats to national security.

Make no mistake, the underlying sponsors of this unConstitutional boloney are corporate. From the extension of copyrights to longer credit histories to biometric tracking, this is all about the corporate world wanting to minimize its exposure to risk. The fact that it plays right into the hands of certain power hungry politicians and their appointed/unelected officials is just unfortunate for us.

where's my troll mod?

[circletimessquare]

you will find that the majority of americans won't be disturbed by this. there are some who will use this as proof that most americans are morons. as if insulting the average citizen is supposed to win you any points in the battle against big/ intrusive government, oh great genius?

no, the average american won't care, because the average american, when given news like this, doesn't see a big downside to this. when told the downside to this as displayed here in some posts, they will think the average slashdot poster has been watching too many paranoid hollywood movies

now give my troll mod for not toeing the party line here

yawn

Re:Fingerprint retention

[fyngyrz]

The FBI already retains fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks, at least for companies registered with the SEC.

That doesn't make it right.

Re:He Loved Big Brother

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully you're trolling, but sadly a lot of people actually believe that.

What they fail to comprehend is that the "criminal" element is just as evenly dispersed among government jobs as among the rest of society. When you create a huge power differential between those holding certain government jobs and the rest of us, you are empowering the criminals on that side as well as the good people on that side.

This is what happens when you try to pre-assign people "goodness" ratings based on what job they hold. You end up with a subset of vastly overpowered criminals (granted power by the laws themselves) and no net decrease in what we commonly regard as criminal behavior (killing, theft, fraud, etc.).

The only sane way to assign arbitrary power to law enforcers is to maintain constant oversight of them, in a circular fashion -- the police watch the citizens, the citizens watch a police oversight body, and the police oversight body watches the police. That we neglect to do this is a serious mistake, and it results in a police force that behaves like it can get away with anything ethical or unethical (and often does).

Re:What ARE the Alternatives?

[snl2587]

Other countries don't have terrorist problems (yet), and so they don't have to perform intrusive procedures.

Under what rock have you been living?

I am not convinced that we are any less safe now then we were a decade or so ago, just much more paranoid. It really says something when a nation of immigrants is deceived into thinking they need to bar foreigners.

Re:U.S.And them

[cooley]

It's just that, well, we have a fairly large population of over-religious farmers who tend to vote for all the wrong people. That's funny, every demographic I've ever seen says that between 1 and 2 percent of the US population either lives on a farm or considers farming their occupation. One to two percent of the population has very little sway over the outcome of our national elections.

You go ahead and keep telling yourself that "it's some farmer in the midwest" screwing it all up, though; especially the next time you drive through Florida.

Right now on the US National political scene, it would seem that the default "heir" to the Bush/Cheney ideology of fear is Rudolph Giuliani. What city was he mayor of, again? Are there a lot of farmers living in Manhattan?

Oh wait, I must have been confused; it's Illinois where a lot of farmers live, and their state has given us Senator Obama in the Presidential contender line-up.

Please, if you're going to generalize about the American population, try to generalize in a way that makes sense. Here you're telling our foreign friend "hey look, we Americans are cooler than we might appear", yet then you generalize about "farmers". Nice.

Sad but true

[Nursie]

The average person will simply think the government is doing more to look out for *them*.

A few false arrests and multi-year imprisonments because of a software bug or flaw in the biometric database? Just the price to be paid for security.

That particular way of thinking sickens me, but it's quite prevalent. Many people (my mother included) would far rather see 10 innocents imprisoned than one guilty man go free. Because they're terrorists or something.

I try to explain that I know have Iranian family on my father's side and next time it could be me that's falsely accused of associating with and aiding people (incorrectly) thought to be terrorists. But that doesn't seem to get through, that there could ever be a mistake. Somewhere in the back of a lot of folks minds there's this strong conviction that mistakes like that just don't happen, despite multiple high profile examples to the contrary, and even if they do, it doesn't matter because they don't think it can happen to them. Because why would it? I'm a good person, why would the government arrest me?

At that point I usually give up trying to argue and go back to mourning the state of the world. No, it doesn't win me any points, realising that the average person is about as questioning of authority as a faithful puppy, it is unfortunately the true state of the world though.

Re:He Loved Big Brother

[Anonymous Coward]

What they fail to comprehend is that the "criminal" element is just as evenly dispersed among government jobs as among the rest of society.

As a member of the general public, I take umbrage with that statement. I'm convinced that there is a far greater representation of the criminal element in modern government (at least, in "elected" and appointed office) than in the rest of society. The same can be said of the business executive level.

When you create a huge power differential between those holding certain government jobs and the rest of us, you are empowering the criminals on that side

Exactly. And that is what I think attracts people with criminal tendencies to government office and to business executive. The power and potential rewards are so great as to act like a magnet to people with criminal tendencies.

Re:voteronpaul Tag

[Leftist Troll]

Don't worry, the Ron Paul internet zombies have all kinds of talking point rebuttals to that. Some crap about how taking their money is the ultimate insult - maybe someone should tell that to all those industry groups and lobbyists in DC.

I wonder how well it would go over if he took money from radical Islamic fundamentalists.