'Server in The Sky' Update: FBI Cheers the Mountaineers
Jill R. Aitoro writes on GovExec's "Tech Insider" Blog:
The Federal Bureau of Investigations is teaming up with West Virginia University in national security efforts using biometric technology. According to a press announcement released yesterday, WVU will serve as the academic arm of the FBI's Biometric Center of Excellence, providing biometrics research support to the FBI and its law enforcement and national security partners.
The center will coordinate biometric and identity management activities within the FBI and partner with other U.S. government agencies to develop and train users on biometric technologies and systems. The goal is to leverage biometric technology in the fight against terrorism and intelligence efforts.
More
here.
Bigger Brother: FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics
Ellen Nakashima writes on The Washington Post:
The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.
Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. 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.
More
here.
U.S. Builds Largest Biometric Database
Sharon Weinberger writes on Aviation Week:
One of the most important innovations in the FBI's post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts consists of a portable workstation and a miniaturesatellite dish. Called the Quick Capture Platform (QCP), it electronically scans fingerprints and beams them to a database here.
"What it provides is the capability from anywhere for an agent to send prints to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and the Defense Dept.'s Automatic Biometric Identification System (ABIS)," says Roy Bowlen of the FBI, who helped develop the system.
IAFIS and ABIS together make up the largest trove of fingerprint data in the world.
The fingerprints are scanned into a digital format and data are beamed via satellite to an underground data center. There, the computerized systems search the database and shoot back matches, "a lot of times in under 2 min.," says Bowlen.
More
here.
FBI, DHS Launch Third Fingerprint System Data-Sharing Pilot
Wilson P. Dizard III writes on GCN.com:
The government’s massive, technologically ambitious project to achieve connectivity between two critical biometric databases took a step forward as the Homeland Security Department and the FBI unveiled an additional pilot project.
The project to achieve information sharing between the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and the Homeland Security’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) database dates back in various forms for many years and is planned to extend forward for several years.
IDENT contains millions of two-fingerprint records gathered by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, which now is part of DHS.
More
here.
Server in The Sky: FBI Expected to Award NGI Contract to Lockheed Martin
Alice Lipowicz and Ben Bain write on FCW.com:
The FBI is expected to announce as early as today that it has awarded a $1 billion biometric database contract to Lockheed Martin, industry sources say.
An FBI spokesman said he anticipated the agency would make an announcement as early as today but did not confirm who won. Industry sources close to the competition said the FBI has notified the bidders that Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract.
More
here.
Note: Given that Lockheed Martin is also the contractor "conducting" the UK 2011 National Census, this should be rather worrisome,
regardless of MP assurances.
-ferg
FBI's IT Raises Red Flags for Senate Judiciary Chairman
Ben Bain writes on FCW.com:
The FBI’s past setbacks in implementing information technology upgrades and its recent abuse of national security letters to obtain data on Americans are reasons to be concerned about its efforts to construct the $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) biometric database [See previous blog entries on the FBI's "Server in The Sky" initiative. - ferg] , lawmakers said today.
“The confidence and credibility of the FBI has also taken a hit as the bureau seeks to exploit increasingly potent technologies,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, said in a prepared statement for the committee’s oversight hearing on the bureau.
More
here.
FBI Wants Instant Access to British Identity Data
Owen Bowcott writes in The Guardian:
Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists.
The US-initiated programme, "Server in the Sky", would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the "war against terror" - the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy.
Biometric measurements, irises or palm prints as well as fingerprints, and other personal information are likely to be exchanged across the network. One section will feature the world's most wanted suspects. The database could hold details of millions of criminals and suspects.
The FBI is keen for the police forces of American allies to sign up to improve international security. The Home Office yesterday confirmed it was aware of Server in the Sky, as did the Metropolitan police.
More
here.
Hat-tip: Pogo Was Right
New Zealand May Join FBI-Led Global Database to Fight Crime, Terror
Elizabeth Binning writes in The New Zealand Herald:
New Zealand is likely to join an FBI-led consortium that plans a global database of personal information to catch criminals and terrorists.
Overseas reports have listed this country as a member of the database project, known as Server in the Sky.
It would enable biometric details and measurements - such as irises, palms and fingerprints - as well as personal information of suspects to be swapped between countries.
But officials say this country is still considering joining the consortium and has no plans at this stage to join the database.
The FBI is said to be keen to urge police forces of allied countries to work together to improve international security.
More
here.
FBI Invites Australia to Join Big Brother Crime Database
Mark Russell writes on The Age:
The FBI wants Australia to take part in an international database to be used to hunt down major criminals and terrorists.
A working group called the International Information Consortium has been formed by allies in the war against terror — the US, Australia, UK, Canada and New Zealand — to look into setting up the database.
The program, known as Server in the Sky, would involve the exchange of information about wanted criminals, including their biometric measurements (irises or palm prints) and fingerprints.
More
here.
The FBI's Expanding Data Center
Wilson P. Dizard III writes on GCN.com:
Upgrading a data center is a big job under any circumstances, but managers at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) division have a real challenge — overhauling a 100,000-square-foot data center while the facility continues to provide around-the-clock data services to police agencies, civil organizations and private companies.
The data center, part of a bucolic campus on almost 1,000 acres of hills and hollows near Clarksburg, W.Va., uses a fleet of mainframes and servers and thousands of miles of cabling. Its upgrade might be likened to replacing the engines of a jumbo jet while in flight, so careful planning and precise execution is essential.
The makeover, known as the realignment project, is designed to accommodate ever-increasing demands for processing and data storage driven partly by unfolding efforts to combat terrorism. Biometric services required by legislation that mandates background checks for teachers, bank employees and other workers are one source of the increased demand.
Thomas Bush, the bureau’s assistant director in charge of CJIS, said another of the most pressing new processing demands arises from work to mesh so-called flat fingerprint records held by the Homeland Security Department with rolled-fingerprint data.
More
here.
'Server in The Sky' - FBI Wants Palm Prints, Eye Scans, Tattoo Mapping
Kelli Arena and Carol Cratty write on CNN.com:
The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.
But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns -- what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.
The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans.
More
here.
FBI Plans Major Database Upgrade
Wilson P. Dizard III writes on GCN.com:
The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Service Division is laying detailed plans for a comprehensive revamping of its massive fingerprint database that will enhance interoperability with the Homeland Security Department’s biometric records and clear the path for adding additional types of biometrics.
To mark the major changes, the bureau plans to change the name of its Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System to Next Generation Identification. The systems upgrade will involve a procurement in the range of “hundreds of millions of dollars” with a proposal request phase beginning next January, officials said.
More
here.
The Whistleblower Who Exposed Warrantless Wiretaps
Michael Isikoff writes on Newsweek.com:
Thomas M. Tamm was entrusted with some of the government's most important secrets. He had a Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, a level above Top Secret. Government agents had probed Tamm's background, his friends and associates, and determined him trustworthy.
It's easy to see why: he comes from a family of high-ranking FBI officials. During his childhood, he played under the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, and as an adult, he enjoyed a long and successful career as a prosecutor. Now gray-haired, 56 and fighting a paunch, Tamm prides himself on his personal rectitude. He has what his 23-year-old son, Terry, calls a "passion for justice." For that reason, there was one secret he says he felt duty-bound to reveal.
In the spring of 2004, Tamm had just finished a yearlong stint at a Justice Department unit handling wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies—a unit so sensitive that employees are required to put their hands through a biometric scanner to check their fingerprints upon entering. While there, Tamm stumbled upon the existence of a highly classified National Security Agency program that seemed to be eavesdropping on U.S. citizens. The unit had special rules that appeared to be hiding the NSA activities from a panel of federal judges who are required to approve such surveillance. When Tamm started asking questions, his supervisors told him to drop the subject. He says one volunteered that "the program" (as it was commonly called within the office) was "probably illegal."
Tamm agonized over what to do. He tried to raise the issue with a former colleague working for the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the friend, wary of discussing what sounded like government secrets, shut down their conversation. For weeks, Tamm couldn't sleep. The idea of lawlessness at the Justice Department angered him. Finally, one day during his lunch hour, Tamm ducked into a subway station near the U.S. District Courthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue. He headed for a pair of adjoining pay phones partially concealed by large, illuminated Metro maps. Tamm had been eyeing the phone booths on his way to work in the morning. Now, as he slipped through the parade of midday subway riders, his heart was pounding, his body trembling. Tamm felt like a spy. After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he picked up a phone and called The New York Times.
More
here.
Fingerprints of Terrorists
Truth? Or propaganda? Or both? You decide...
A UPI News article, via PhysOrg.com, reports that:
Muslim terrorist places a bomb inside a mosque in Iraq. The bomb detonates, obliterating most of the building. But American military personnel, sifting through the debris, just moments later, find a doorknob with the scoundrel's fingerprints on it, from a door he opened to enter the facility.
The prints are collected with digital technology, and sent via a wireless network, locally, in Iraq, and then across the globe via satellite to the Army's Biometric Fusion Center in Clarksburg, W. Va., near Washington, D.C.
There, Army agents, working with FBI counterparts, scan the prints, and compare them with a database of known terrorists, looking to determine if the killer was behind other bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the world, experts tell United Press International's Networking.
More
here.
