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Identity Dominance: the US Military's Biometric War In Afghanistan
Advocatus Diaboli (1627651) writes "For years the U.S. military has been waging a biometric war in Afghanistan, working to unravel the insurgent networks operating throughout the country by collecting the personal identifiers of large portions of the population. A restricted U.S. Army guide on the use of biometrics in Afghanistan obtained by Public Intelligence provides an inside look at this ongoing battle to identify the Afghan people."
I take it that this is going to be a beta test and that as soon (or sooner) than we eventually GTFO of that sand-trap, the same vendors will pop up with a variety of exciting new biometric homeland security and law enforcement solutions?
From the TFA...
"Locate and identify every resident (visit and record every house and business). At a minimum, fully biometrically enroll all military-age males as follows: Full sets of fingerprints, Full face photo, Iris scans, Names and all variants of names
Use badging to identify local leaders, and key personnel.
Track persons of interest; unusual travel patterns may indicate unusual activities."
"All biometric data collected (is) sent back to the DOD’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) located in West Virginia, where it is stored and also shared with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI. Partnerships with other nations also allow the DOD to run data against biometrics collected by foreign governments and law enforcement."
>> The neoconservatives know better than to let a perfectly good crisis go to waste
Does that make Obama a "neocon"? (If he really wanted us out of those places, he'd have done it by now.)
BTW, the "never let a good crisis go to waste" quote is frequently attributed to Obama's former chief of staff and long-time Chicago associate Rahm Emanuel:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quo...
Frightening. Societally, worse than the diseases and broken bodies that come home from these wars. Many third world countries will soon be more free than the USSA - time to emigrate.
Pretty soon all criminals, insurgents, terrorists and revolutionaries will find themselves practicing the same sort of precautions people used to use to protect themselves against ``witchcraft'':
- not allowing any hair (or skin cells) to be taken by another
- not allowing any instance of bleeding to stain anywhere someone else might have access to it
- not allowing their picture to be taken, lest it steal their soul
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
... think of what they have done to the Americans !!
I mean, in Afghanistan the vast majority of the Afghans were / are of the NON-cooperative type.
There are many Afghans that the American troops never get to meet - because they live in far flung places, and many of them do their best to avoid any contact with the "infidels".
Under that kind of scenario if the Americans can still launch that "biometric" campaign, think of what they might have achieved with their own people - the Americans !!
If you guys think NSA's online surveillance was terrible, think of the "offline" stuffs the American government already have on their own "subjects".
http://www.thenation.com/article/179461/new-abolitionism?page=0,0
"If I’ve done my job so far, you should, right about now, be feeling despair. If, indeed, what we need to save the earth is to forcibly pry trillions of dollars of wealth out of the hands of its owners"
I love it! Power to the (correct) people! Behead the rich!
"What the climate justice movement is demanding is the ultimate abolition of fossil fuels. And our fates all depend on whether they succeed."
Uh huh. Genuis right there. Of course we will have to reduce the population of the planet by about 6 billion people to make this work, but I personally don't have any problem with that.
Statism! Pay no attention to all the dead bodies.
Required to keep the US oligopoly from being overthrown someday. And a good revenue stream to sell to other despot governments.
"The left got scammed hard. Obama is exceptionally right of center practically everywhere that it counts."
You're one of those wackos who claim Stalin was 'right wing', aren't you?
Most of the original neo-cons were Trots who realized they were on the losing side, and switched to the 'right' without changing one iota of their beliefs. How can you possibly claim with a straight face that they, or Obama, are on the same side of politics as Ron Paul?
against the Afghan people.
They want their business model back.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
getting the info off the devices and back to the DOD does not always happen. i know of numerous times an entire missions worth of data was never uploaded to a computer and/or never sent any further up the chain. it may be collected, but it's not all getting where they want it.
and from what I saw in two tours, the data that does make it up never amounts to anything actionable. a waste of money and resources right now.
i think you're right. it is a good place to beta test and will be much more useful here at home, where people are much easier to identify and track.
When you become a better racist, you can identify smaller factions of people.
Oh, I might be wrong, it just might be a religious thing.
Ahh, we're over there for the oil.
Wait, WTF are we doing over there?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
This item, and the subsequent discussion posts, do not state the obvious implication that this kind of tracking is expected to creep into the US.
The really interesting part to me, is that nobody found it necessary to say so. It is automatically assumed that anyone reading will immediately come to the same conclusion, and therefore it need not be stated.
That we have come to this, is scary (notwithstanding my tag).
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fZqeK2kxB1gJ:https://publicintelligence.net/identity-dominance/
Chile, where we succeeded, is Latin America's top economy — now and for the last twenty years or more. Cuba, where we failed, is a shithole. As is Venezuela, where we decided not to bother...
This is true, unfortunately. And most of the idiots are wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Game of Thrones teaches us the world is run by murderers.
I could see this stuff being very useful in countries bordering Amerika to identify Navy Seals infiltrating an area that Obama wants to take over. (Seals are basically secular terrorists, working to spread fear and turmoil to soften up an area prior to regular US forces rolling in) Syria would probably love to have this ability "yesterday" as they say. For the East in general, having the ability to ID and arrest Seals, and get some confessions from some, would be extremely valuable in discrediting US pretexts for invasion. I hate to say this but as a European I think this will be needed soon. Don't forget that Seals have female operators and paunchy looking middled aged men too, whatever allows them to blend in.
Fixed that for you.
No. Obama is not a Neo-con...neo-cons criticize and oppose Obama at every point.
Also, other ways Obama is not a neo-con:
Obama is not anti-abortion
Obama is not in favor of teaching creationism in schools
Obama does not cut social services
Obama does not deny climate change & pollution
Obama does not shut down the government for no reason
Obama does not take away civil rights
Obama is virtually diametrically opposed to Neo-cons on every issue you can name
Thank you Dave Raggett
It bears reminding that older methods of counterinsurgency often backfired because they relied on mass punishment of the innocent in order to (attempt to) coerce the enemy. That often backfired because it renews the enemy forces from the population one just shat on.
Mapping opposition human networks is far more reasonable (and not a war crime) than putting Zippos to a village where one suspects hostiles are being harbored.
slashdot is wrong to downmod any post as "flamebait" that identifies a particular political party
it's "Flamebait" if it is not connected to logic or evidence and blatantly meant to incite vitiriol
it's a "Troll" if it uses "in the know" language to mimic what an on-topic post might superficially look like, but in the end it lacks the same logical, supported choherent point that "Flamebait" lacks
parents post was neither! they mention specific, checkable points as comparison
this kind of moderation is ruining slashdot
Thank you Dave Raggett
Attack a country and then build a biometric map of the country's citizens. But, then yell if somebody protests. Ugh
The only Cheneysque thing Obama hasn't continued and expanded is the torture program. Everything else, Obama has done bigger and better than his predecessor - more spying, more countries bombed, more executive privilege, more FOIA requests denied, more prosecutions of whisteblowers than all previous presidents combined times two.....
That's part of the problem: you seem to have confused "neocon" with "Christian Right". The two are not remotely the same thing - not all homophobes have a hard-on for bombing Iran, and not all imperialists want to ban abortion. Case in point: Dick Cheney "evolved" on gay marriage almost 10 years before Obama made it cool.
To do what right wingers always do: move the conversation to the right. Like on domestic policy: before the ACA was Obamacare, it was Romneycare, and before that Dolecare, and before that the Heritage Foundation plan. Yet the Republicans went and lost their minds once the Democrats adopted the 20 year old Republican plan as their own.
That's not a fix, as the grandparent was also correct.
Just because the US govt. has no apparent morals, don't presume that other governments do. Some of them may.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Power corrupts. . . I think it's clear where we are headed.
you're being dishonest in this discussion
you're using a term "neocon" inconsistently and it's obvious by context that it was intentional
you = GOP troll
Thank you Dave Raggett
Sadly this intelligence gathering did not go unnoticed by the Taliban, and now NGO's trying to inoculate the local population against horrible diseases (and in no way connected to the US Army), get blown up by the Taliban (they have killed a lot of them) because of the perceived association, however misguided.
And what happens to those who refuse to give their fingerprints? :)
You don't know WTF you're talking about. Neocons are all about extending the American Empire, not hating gays or banning abortions. This is remedial modern politics, here.
Yes, because sooooooooooooo many Republicans are angry with Obama's drone strikes, illegal invasions and support for coups against democratically elected governments for a lack of pro-west capitalism.
you = butthurt Obamabot reciting a script
neo-cons are some of Obama's harshest, most intractable critics you fsking troll!
they *hate* his policies, foreign and domestic...this is the last post I will elucidate for you
and the religious right & tea party are their subordinates, ideologically and by policy...they are led around and do exactly what they are told
none of this changes the fact that Neo-cons oppose Obama nor does it "prove" you right somehow
only a GOP-troll "libertarian" would frame the argument around those bogus issues
"drone strikes" is a reductive concept...it's a missile on a jet...whether the pilot of it is in the cockpit or in a booth in California doesn't matter...it's a stupid, trolling criticism that no one credibly makes...it's rhetorical distraction...media bate...
"illegal invasions"...this is just made up out of thin air...
so no, your position doesn't make logical sense, your criticisms have been shown to be trolling-based...and you're just a dupe, stubborn, or something else I don't know
Thank you Dave Raggett