Security agencies in talks on global criminal database: UK police - Yahoo! News
AP reports: "British security agencies have been in talks with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation over plans for a global database of major criminals and suspected terrorists, a police spokesman told AFP Tuesday."

Comment: If it's just the U.S. and the British who can place names into the database, that would be one thing, but if other countries, more repressive countries, can place names into the database, I see the potential for great abuse. Missionaries, democracy activists and human rights workers are seen as subversives in many parts of the world. How tempting would it be for a country to put the names of such people into the database?

My Way News - Britain to Fingerprint Visa Applicants
AP reports: "Logging and checking visitors' biometric information is one of the central planks of the government's new immigration strategy, which includes the introduction of an Australian-style points system intended to encourage skilled immigrants, the creation of police-like border force and fines for bosses who do not ensure their employees are legally entitled to work in Britain."

My Way News - Video Ads Are Planned for Grocery Carts
AP reports: "Microsoft Corp. is bringing digital advertising to the grocery cart. The software maker spent four years working with Plano, Texas-based MediaCart Holdings Inc. on a grocery cart-mounted console that helps shoppers find products in the store, then scan and pay for their items without waiting in the checkout line."

My Way News - 666 Draws Comment in House of Commons
AP reports: "The beast of the Book of Revelation intruded into the banter of the House of Commons on Thursday when a motion calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England was numbered 666."

Comment: I'm not sure what to make of this, but it's seems noteworthy, Bible prophecy being mentioned, even quoted, in an AP newswire report. Strange days indeed.

My Way News - New Security Rules for Driver's Licenses
AP reports: "Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years under ambitious post-9/11 security rules to be unveiled Friday by federal officials."

Comment: Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that this is the Mark of the Beast or in any way sinister, it's just an example of the post-9/11 trend in more mandatory ID requirements, and the Mark is (or rather, will be) the most extreme form of mandatory ID.

My Way News - ACLU Rips Plan to Track R.I. Students
AP reports: "A tech company with ties to a school district plans to test a tracking system by putting computer chips on grade-schoolers' backpacks, an experiment the ACLU ripped Monday as invasive and unnecessary."

Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Daily Kos reports: "Oh this is just priceless. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners are learning to recognize a special set of forbidden facial expressions. If your face slips into one of these during a TSA inspection, you will be taken aside and given a more detailed screening."

This is an eerie post because they contrast actual TSA policy with a quote from George Orwell's, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell called it facecrime.

My Way News - US Near Bottom of Global Privacy Index
AP reports: "Individual privacy is under threat around the world as governments continue introducing surveillance and information-gathering measures, according to an international rights group. [...] The survey considered such factors as legal protections, enforcement, data sharing, the use of biometrics and prevalence of closed-circuit cameras."

My Way News - Dodd Seeks Boost on Surveillance Bill
AP reports: "The Senate is considering whether to shield the telecommunications companies from the roughly 40 pending civil lawsuits alleging violations of communications and wiretapping laws. The White House says if the cases go forward they could reveal information that would compromise national security."

Washington Post - Spurred by Gratitude, "Bomb Lady" Develops Better Weapons for U.S.
The Washington Post reports:

Duong's most recent innovation, the Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facilities (JEFF) project or "lab in a box," analyzes biometrics. It will be delivered to Iraq at the beginning of 2008, the Navy said, to help distinguish insurgents from civilians. [...] the military has been scanning the irises and taking the fingerprints of Iraqis, feeding a biometrics data base in West Virginia. [...] Each collapsible, sand-colored, 20-by-20-foot unit has its own generator and satellite link. If things go as planned, data will beamed to the Biometric Fusion Center to check against more than a million Iraqi fingerprints.

What a great use of biometric technology, if this helps to minimize civilian casualties, it will be more than worth it. I'm not really an alarmist on this kind of thing. I mean, it's not like they are implanting them with RFID chips, this technology is pretty old (fingerprints!) so I see this as just one more example of how the use of biometrics is being accelerated in this age of terrorism and war.