DHS Biometric Program in Trouble

[Ian David]

By Luke O'Brien| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Feb, 26, 2007

A House Appropriations subcommittee and congressional investigators are renewing criticism of the US-VISIT program, a Department of Homeland Security initiative to collect and share biometric-fingerprint and facial data from all foreign visitors to the United States.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, released a report (.pdf) this month revealing that, even as development costs settle, US-VISIT's overall price tag is spiraling up "without any accompanying explanation of the reasons," the report said.

In an interview with Wired News, Randy Hite, the author of the GAO report, described US-VISIT as a plane flying aimlessly. "We're asking for a pilot to program in a destination," Hite said. "Instead, we have it on autopilot with no destination."

US-VISIT collects a digital photo and two digital fingerprints from incoming visitors to the United States, and checks each traveler against scores of government watchlists stored in a hodgepodge of backend databases. The program was launched in January 2004 in an effort to secure the border from terrorists.

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"I've had it," rumbled Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Kentucky), the ranking minority member on the subcommittee, at the hearing. "We've withheld funds and released them, dribbled them out long enough. Face up to it. Give us the plan. If you can't do the plan, scrap US-VISIT.... How can we do our job if you won't tell us where you're going?"

Rogers set a March 16 deadline for US-VISIT to supply the strategic plan and the spending plan for 2007. (A Republican cutting and running from keeping us safe from terra!?)

More:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72792-0.html?tw=rss.index

[Double T]

1. The ENTIRE DHS operations is overkill and should NO LONGER..........

be funded. DHS is an pathetic excuse to destroy YOUR freedom.