"They've been doing it in Florida, and the old people seem to like it"

This new tactic of selectively compiling biometric data of Iraqis as part of the new operation to wall off and establish checkpoints for some of the most restive neighborhoods of Baghdad almost got by me in this article.

I understand here in America fingerprinting for things like a new job is common practice, but this exceeds that limited scope.

This operation gives the appearance, rightly or not, of forcing citizens of a democracy to submit to random tracking as if they were cattle on a farm. Thats the way it looks like to me.

I understand the logic behind the plan to track residents and seperate the criminals from the law abiding citizens, but it just seems to me to be another one of these things the U.S. does that makes more enemies than it vanquishes.

If the cops came to my neighborhood and said crime is up so Ill need your fingerprints and eyescan to cross the street, I would say go screw yourself.

This is why we invaded that country, to wall them in and tag them like steer?

Excerpt from:

'Gated Communities' For the War-Ravaged
U.S. Tries High Walls and High Tech To Bring Safety to Parts of Baghdad
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 23, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD


In some sealed-off areas, troops armed with biometric scanning devices will compile a neighborhood census by recording residents' fingerprints and eye patterns and will perhaps issue them special badges, military officials said. At least 10 Baghdad neighborhoods are slated to become or already are gated communities, said Brig. Gen. John F. Campbell, the deputy commander of American forces in Baghdad.

The tactic is part of the two-month-old U.S. and Iraqi counterinsurgency plan to calm sectarian strife and is loosely modeled after efforts in cities such as Tall Afar and Fallujah, where the military says it has curbed violence by strictly controlling access. The gated communities concept has produced mixed results in previous wars -- including failure in Vietnam, where peasants were forcibly moved to fortified hamlets, only to become sympathizers of the insurgency.