The cops are on their way

Joe just showed me this not long ago, via Boing Boing I think: the FBI is spending $1 Billion on a new database of various physical characteristics. This is kind of scary. To me, this is all starting to sound like something out of 1984, and people have been complaining about if this is the FBI way overstepping the bounds of reason. Imagine what they could possibly put into a Biometrics database:

-Fingerprints, obviously
-Iris patterns
-Face shape data
-Credit card purchases
-Library books checked out

Maybe some other stuff. What's a bit weirder is that the FBI has already taken numerous DNA samples from about 1.5 million Afghan and Iraqi detainees, which means you or I could get away with murder far easier than they could. That simply isn't American, but then again they are detainees and they have no rights because they are terrorists.

The funniest part of the article comes from the ACLU, being classy as always:

"It's going to be an essential component of tracking," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's enabling the Always On Surveillance Society."

Think about that acronym for a second.

Is it about time I became a card-carrying member of the ACLU? It's long overdue. I will look into it later today.