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WAR ON TERRORISM: Tools of the Trade
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
The Associated Press

The U.S. biometric system, known as the Biometrics Automated Toolset, or BAT, includes about 50 laptop computers equipped with scanners. The information on suspects is stored in a central database at a U.S. intelligence agency -- De Bolt declined to say which one -- in the Washington area.

The United States is compiling digital dossiers of the irises, fingerprints, faces and voices of terrorism suspects and using the information to track their movements and screen foreigners trying to enter the country.

Since January, military and intelligence operatives have collected the identifying data on prisoners in Afghanistan and at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There are also plans to extend the collection process to Iraq in the event of a U.S. invasion.

With this project, the U.S. government has taken biometrics -- the measuring of human features -- well beyond its most common use to date: verifying people's identities before giving them access to computers or secure areas.

"We're trying to collect every biometric on every bad guy that we can," said Lt. Col. Kathy De Bolt, deputy director of the Army battle lab at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., where the biometric tools being used were developed.

"Any place we go into -- Iraq or wherever -- we're going to start building a dossier on people of interest to intelligence. Even if they get released, we have face and voice clips. When they come into one of our checkpoints, we can say, 'You're this bad guy from here.'"
(More: The Daily Herald News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan