Iraqi Biometric Database Could Become Extermination List, Pentagon Says

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are being enrolled in a U.S military-run biometric database, seeded with Saddam Hussein's own spy files. The Army created the database to help the occupation forces tell good guys from bad guys, but the program's manager Lieutenant Colonel John Velliquette admitted to DANGER ROOM's Noah Shachtman that the Iraqi biometric database could become a "hit list if it gets in the wrong hands."

This database, I must add, is also very sensitive, because essentially what it becomes is a hit list if it gets in the wrong hands. You know, some sectors are entirely Sunni, some are entirely Shi'ite, so we make take great pains to make sure this database stays in the proper hands.

Noah published chunks of the interview, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center drew comparisons to Rwanda 's identification cards in its letter to the Pentagon (.pdf).

As I wrote the first go round:

Starting up a new system to take the fingerprints of people convicted of a crime is one thing. Digitizing the secret spy files of a murderous dictator and enrolling new people simply detained by local cops or foreign soldiers? I can taste the freedom from here.

Photo: John Leech