Posted on 03/22/2006 11:08:37 AM PST by Rebelbase
If you are stopped by police in Kansas, dont be surprised if the officer pulls out a little black box and takes your fingerprints.
The gadget allows officers to identify people by fingerprints without hauling them to the police station.
Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii.
This is definitely new, said Gary Page, Overland Park Police Department crime lab. Its been talked about, but as far as I know they are not in use anywhere in the metro.
The tests in Kansas are part of a bigger $3.6 million upgrade to the KBIs statewide fingerprint database, unveiled Tuesday by the KBI and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.
■ The system:
Called the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, it is a statewide database of more than 10 million fingerprints taken from people arrested in Kansas. The Missouri Highway Patrol maintains a similar database. Both systems link to the FBI fingerprint database.
■ How it works:
In Kansas, 54 law enforcement agencies have traded the ink-and-paper fingerprinting method for biometric imaging, which electronically scans a digital image of the print. Sixty Missouri agencies use biometric scanning. Police also can scan the fingers of corpses and people they arrest to match them against prints in the system. Results are obtained in seconds instead of hours. The inked cards still used by some smaller departments are also scanned into the statewide systems.
■ Why upgrade?
Kansas could no longer locate replacement parts or anyone to service the old system, which was launched in 1990 and upgraded in 1998. The first phase was funded with a $752,000 homeland security grant. The KBI is applying for similar grants to pay the balance. All upgrades should be completed by January 2007.
■ The portable devices:
Police place a persons two index fingers on a screen. Wireless technology sends the image to the database for comparison. Prints scanned in the field will not be stored.
It's like the 1930's in Nazi Germany.
"PAPERS"
Anyone believing this should check themselves into protective custody, before they seriously injure themselves.
And on another thread NYC is getting 500 cameras with millions in grant funds. Add this up around the country and it is a good chunk of change.
Calm down everybody. This only happens to you if you respond to the officer in English.
Nahh
Notice it says the prints taken in the field will not be stored. Yet, the prints are wired in and are stored on a database.
I guess in newspeak, a database is not a storage medium.
Not bad for a state boasting a total population of about 2.2 million.
Exactly. If you have a valid license, this seems an unnecessary intrusion. If it weeds out Illegals, I'm all for it. I'm quite sure it will not be used for anything that productive though.
I call bullshit on that one.
And if you aren't in the database already, you will be...
Texas has already made it a requirement of DL renewal to submit fingerprints.
The Keystone Kops still can't catch the crack dealers up the street.
Ear lobe implants, anyone ?
It seems like a lot more money and effort is put into identifying and successfully prosecuting routine traffic violations then crimes involving identity theft and credit card fraud.
"Prints scanned in the field will not be stored."
Yeah, right.
Easier to get scofflaws to pay their taxes, er fines, than to prosecute criminals.
Revenue is the driving force on all these schemes as well as cataloging citizens.
I saw this while on a tour of a Melbourne defense contractor about 3 years ago. They were saying that it would be in police cars all across the country eventually. Guess they were right.
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