It says what it says.
I hope Carson was simply talking about all the information (birth certs., SSN, tax info, terrorist watch lists, etc.) that the government legitimately has and everyone knows about. If he means a detailed tracking of all citizens, then I do think this idea is horrible and unconstitutional.
The problem with this article is its title. The title makes it look like he’s advocating a surveillance system for all citizens be set up; yet his comments do not make it clear that is what he’s advocating. The title quote leaves off the words “who comes into this country.” In other words, he wants the government to know as much about each immigrant as it already knows about each citizen.
Plus, the article states that Carson was asked about tracking Muslim extremists specifically, so it’s not even clear whether he’s addressing anything beyond tracking extremism among the population. I do think the Post is trying to manipulate the meaning of his words to tar Republicans as authoritarian—a way of building on the recent, controversial misrepresentations about Trump to create a negative meme about the right as a whole.