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Wiping the gun clean has long been considered best practice for villains but may soon become a quaint custom that will ultimately prove fruitless. Researchers have developed a method to ‘visualize fingerprints’ even after the print itself has been removed by measuring the corrosion of the surface by deposits from the fingerprints. The technique can enhance – after firing– a fingerprint that has been deposited on a small caliber metal cartridge case before it is fired. The technique promises the ability to reopen many cases and solve cold cases around the world because the “underlying print never disappears” according to...

In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States. There was the suspected militant fleeing Somalia who had been arrested on a drug charge in New Jersey. And the man stopped at a checkpoint in Tikrit who claimed to be a dirt farmer but had 11 felony charges in the United States, including assault with a deadly weapon. The records suggest that...

WASHINGTON - May 23, 2008 - Fingerprints are considered to be among the most personal of information, and fingerprint databases created and proposed in the name of national security have generated much debate. Recently, “Server in the Sky” - a proposed international database of the fingerprints of suspected criminals and terrorists to be shared among the U.S., UK and Canada - has ignited a firestorm of controversy, as have cavalier comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that fingerprints aren’t “personal data.” Yet earlier this week, a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security passed...

The Senate housing bill approved by a committee this week was already drawing fire from fiscal conservatives and financially responsible homeowners opposed to bailing out housing speculators. Now it may be time to add privacy advocates to the chorus of voices urging President Bush to veto the bill, which could put taxpayers on the hook for billions of bailout dollars in new taxes or deficit spending. Buried in the text of the revised legislation, approved by the Senate Banking Committee by a 19-2 vote this week, is a plan to create a new national fingerprint registry. It covers just about...

Fingerprints are considered to be among the most personal of information, and fingerprint databases created and proposed in the name of national security have generated much debate. Recently, “Server in the Sky” — a proposed international database of the fingerprints of suspected criminals and terrorists to be shared among the U.S., U.K. and Canada — has ignited a firestorm of controversy. As have cavalier comments by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that fingerprints aren’t “personal data.”

Fingerprints can reveal race and sex By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent Last Updated: 7:37am BST 03/08/2007 A new fingerprinting technique that can identify the race and sex, and possibly the diet of suspects has been developed. Scientists have shown that using a gelatine-based gel and high-tech chemical analysis can provide significant clues to a person’s identity even if police do not hold existing fingerprint records. The new method can pick up tiny traces of substances such as gunpowder, drugs, or biological or chemical weapons. Preliminary tests, highlighted in this month’s edition of the journal Analytical Chemistry, also suggest it could...

Taunton schools to use fingerprints Taunton schools this spring could become the first in Massachusetts to have students pay for lunch by scanning their fingerprints, a plan that is triggering an uproar among parents and ACLU officials worried about privacy and possible identity theft. Under the plan, which is voluntary, schools will scan two fingerprints from each student, which will be converted into an individual number linked to a meal account. When they buy lunch, students will tap their finger on a reader that brings up the account. The cashier will enter the items and deduct the cost. School officials...

HOME seekers will soon have to show their FINGERPRINTS to take out a mortgage. Banks and building societies will introduce the measure for first-time buyers to clamp down on identity fraud. The shock move comes as the Government prepares plans to introduce its controversial ID cards. Home Secretary John Reid asked lenders what checks they would like for granting a mortgage. They want fingerprint and facial biometrics - which will be included on identity cards. Couples buying their first home will be the first to get the cards when they are introduced in 2009. Eventually everyone will need one. Premier...

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan (AFP) - In a huge cavity dug into the side of a cliff, workers search through the rubble to exhume the remains of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. At the scene of the crime carried out in 2001 all evidence points to Osama bin Laden as the mastermind. "This is the terrorism of the Taliban," says Rahim, an official at the work site in front of the empty niche of the biggest of the two statues, one of which stood 55 metres (182 feet) tall and the other 38 metres. Wearing a hard hat and a mask over...

We used to fingerprint felons -- now, we're "inking" traffic scofflaws. Run a couple of mph over the speed limit in the state of Kansas (or even fail to "buckle up for safety") and you'll be duly entered into the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's electronic fingerprint database -- a privilege once reserved for actual criminals, not ordinary citizens who commit minor violations of the motor vehicle code. KBI, authorized by the state government, will be "testing out" 60 automated fingerprint readers throughout the state beginning this month -- all of it funded by a $3.6 million grant from the Department...

Lobbyists and the political committees they run have contributed $103 million to members of Congress in the past eight years, according to a report released Monday. In the first study of its kind, Public Citizen, a group founded by consumer-rights activist Ralph Nader, matched the names in the federal lobbyist registration database with campaign contributions to members of Congress. Study authors found that 6 percent of lobbyists account for 83 percent of the contributions in a system that funnels millions of dollars into the hands of lawmakers with the power to grant lucrative government contracts and favorable legislation. "This evidence...

If you are stopped by police in Kansas, don’t 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. “It’s been talked about, but as far as I know they...

The government has drawn up a bill requiring foreigners aged 16 and older to register their fingerprints in a government database when entering Japan as part of its campaign against terrorism, government sources said Tuesday. The bill, which will revise the Immigration Control and Refugee-Recognition Law, will also allow the government to deport those determined by the justice minister to be terrorists, based on an antiterrorism law, the sources said. The fingerprints would be stored in a database and checked against those of previous deportees. The database is designed to prevent those deported in the past from disguising their identities,...

Once upon a time, in the peaceable, multicultural kingdom of Portland there was a man named Brandon Mayfield. He was arrested and jailed briefly for an awful crime he didn't commit. Why? Because he was a Muslim in George Bush's America, and the president's minions had a really scary new law called the Patriot Act. This law allowed them to arrest and put in jail a totally innocent Muslim for the simple crime of being a Muslim in George Bush's America. And the people in the peaceable, multicultural kingdom of Portland were sore afraid. So goes the Mayfield legend, but...

Irvine, Calif., September 13, 2005 While forensic scientists have long claimed fingerprint evidence is infallible, the widely publicized error that landed an innocent American behind bars as a suspect in the Madrid train bombing alerted the nation to the potential flaws in the system. Now, UC Irvine criminologist Simon Cole has shown that not only do errors occur, but as many as a thousand incorrect fingerprint “matches” could be made each year in the U.S. This is in spite of safeguards intended to prevent errors. Cole’s study is the first to analyze all publicly known mistaken fingerprint matches. In analyzing...

BOSTON -- No two fingerprints are exactly alike. For nearly a century, that widely accepted belief has been enough for police, juries and the general public to feel confident that a fingerprint match in a criminal case is all the proof needed for a conviction. But lawyers for a man who is facing his second trial in the killing of a Boston police officer are challenging the accuracy of fingerprint analysis and asking the state's highest court to prohibit its use in criminal trials until its reliability can be proven through scientific testing. The Supreme Judicial Court is scheduled to...

ATLANTA, May 4 - The F.B.I. defended itself on Wednesday after admitting that it had missed a fingerprint match for a man who the authorities say went on to kill three women and one teenage girl in three states. The man, Jeremy B. Jones, was arrested for minor offenses in Georgia in January and June 2004. But Mr. Jones was released when computerized fingerprint checks did not turn up a 2000 warrant for him for rape, sodomy and jumping bail in Oklahoma. The killings, most preceded by abduction and rape, have gripped communities and frustrated investigators. In one case, residents...

May 4, 2005 - If you're worried about privacy and identity theft, imagine this: The scene: Somewhere in Washington. The date: April 10, 2020. You sit steaming while the officer hops off his electric cycle and walks up to the car window. "You realize that you ran that red light again, don't you, Mr. Witherspoon?" It's no surprise that he knows your name; the intersection camera scanned your license plate and your guilty face, and matched both in the DMV database. The cop had the full scoop before you rolled to a stop. "I know, I know, but the sun...

Cops: Drug Suspect Burns Fingers With Acid Sat Apr 9, 7:37 PM ET Strange News - AP SALEM, Mass. - A man charged with trafficking in cocaine in Salem burned his fingertips with acid to obliterate his fingerprints and hide his identity, police say. The man, who gave the name Jorge Lopez when arrested, was ordered held on $250,000 cash bail after pleading innocent at his arraignment Friday while authorities try to figure out who he is. Salem police Lt. Brian Gilligan told a judge that when they took fingerprints of Lopez after his arrest Wednesday, they were surprised to...

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists are using a new technique to see fingerprints on surfaces that typically make them invisible. The method uses a technology called mini-X-ray fluorescence to detect chemical elements in fingerprints without altering them, said Christopher Worley, a scientist on the project. "The conventional methods are meant to bring out fingerprint patterns with regular light _ and they have to treat those with powder, which alters them," Worley said. "With this you don't have to alter it or treat it at all. We can determine the elements in a fingerprint and get a pattern at the same...

Television shows such as CSI dramatize the work of forensic investigators and glamorize their high-tech toys that help catch criminals. Now real-life criminologists might soon be adding a new weapon to their crime-fighting arsenal: a visualization technique for spotting fingerprints that uses x-ray vision. Results of early tests of the novel approach will be unveiled this week at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego. In the standard approach to lifting fingerprints from a crime scene, known as contrast enhancement, a sample is treated with a substance--either vapor, liquid or powder--that adds color to a...

FUKUOKA--A police officer of Chikugo Police Station in Fukuoka Prefecture left his fingerprints at the scenes of several crimes he was investigating and collected them as evidence, it was learned Friday. According to the Fukuoka prefectural police, the police officer in his 30s has denied involvement in any of the burglaries he was investigating and told the police he thought he had to collect evidence that would be useful for the investigations. As he could not find any evidence of the perpetrators, he said he had no choice but to leave his own fingerprints at the scenes and collect them,...

If you're ticketed by Green Bay police, you'll get more than a fine. You'll get fingerprinted, too. It's a new way police are cracking down on crime. If you're caught speeding or playing your music too loud, or other crimes for which you might receive a citation, Green Bay police officers will ask for your drivers license and your finger. You'll be fingerprinted right there on the spot. The fingerprint appears right next to the amount of the fine. Police say it's meant to protect you -- in case the person they're citing isn't who they claim to be. But...

Deep inside a sprawling complex tucked in the hills of this Appalachian town, a room full of supercomputers attempts to sift America's guilty from its innocent. This is where the FBI keeps its vast database of fingerprints, allowing examiners to conduct criminal checks from computer screens in less than 30 minutes--something that previously took them weeks as they rummaged through 2,100 file cabinets stuffed with inked print cards. But the same digital technology that has allowed the FBI to speed such checks so dramatically over the last few years has created the risk of accusing people who are innocent, the...

The task of burying the dead includes cutting their fingers off in Sri Lanka. In Galle, while many doctors are trying to take care of survivors, some must take the fingers from bodies. Severing fingers allows the corpses to be buried immediately while preserving the possibility they can be later identified. One doctor, Nalaka Gunarutna, told Australia's Herald Sun newspaper he had treated 1,500 corpses and had just two hours of sleep. "If we don't bury these people immediately there will be pollution of drinking water, general smelling, and air pollution affecting lungs," he said.

Carloads of Muslim New Yorkers, all U.S. citizens, were detained for hours by federal agents after they returned from an Islamic convention held in Toronto over the weekend. A Pace University student said she was asked by a border patrol officer at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge crossing whether the wire in her bra was a weapon. A white Flushing resident said U.S. officials refused to tell her why she was being held for eight hours. "It's just appalling," said Jean Tassi, 53. "If I didn't have on a head covering, I would have never been stopped." A U.S. Customs and Border...

Washington - The Republican-run Justice Department is setting its sights on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign in pursuit of possible fund-raising violations. In targeting a rising star in the Democratic Party, prosecutors are trying to gain the cooperation of an indicted businessman who raised the allegations, interviews and documents indicate. The FBI has told a U.S. magistrate in Los Angeles it has evidence the former first lady's campaign deliberately understated its fund-raising costs so it would have more money to spend on elections, and prosecutors allege one person raising funds for her helped because he wanted a pardon...

Talk about no chain of custody! Rather seems to have said zero about who gave them these documents and how they allegedly got their hands on them. There also seems to have been no examination of any originals. But even whatever copy CBS was given should have been examined as an "original" piece of evidence.Whose fingerprints were on it? Who has been handling it recently, if not 30 years ago? If these really are copies of originals, when were the copies made?If they were made two months ago, did someone have the originals then? Then where are the originals? If...

Fun with Fingerprint Readers Tsutomu Matsumoto, a Japanese cryptographer, recently decided to look at biometric fingerprint devices. These are security systems that attempt to identify people based on their fingerprint. For years the companies selling these devices have claimed that they are very secure, and that it is almost impossible to fool them into accepting a fake finger as genuine. Matsumoto, along with his students at the Yokohama National University, showed that they can be reliably fooled with a little ingenuity and $10 worth of household supplies. Matsumoto uses gelatin, the stuff that Gummi Bears are made out of. First...

July 16, 2004 Fingerprints to be computerized By BOB STUART The News Virginian The Waynesboro Police Department is going high tech in its efforts to get the most accurate fingerprints of suspects. Earlier this month, the department used $23,000 of its drug-forfeiture money to buy an automated fingerprinting system made by Cross Match Technologies. It will be operational in a few weeks after officers are trained. Waynesboro Police Chief Doug Davis said no longer will his department have to wait weeks to get fingerprints filed with the Virginia State Police’s central criminal records exchange. With the new system, fingerprints are...

In front of the immigration judge, the tall, muscular man began to weep. No, he had patiently tried to explain, he was not Leo Rosario, a drug dealer and a prime candidate for deportation. He was telling the truth. He was Rene Ramon Sanchez, an auto-body worker and merengue singer from the Bronx who bore not even a passing resemblance to Mr. Rosario, a complete stranger 12 years his junior and a half-foot shorter. "Why don't you get his photo then?" Mr. Sanchez cried out in Spanish, pounding a fist into his palm. "And compare my fingerprints with his?" The...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1132031/posts Fingerprint links Oregon with SpainOregonian Live ^ | May 08, 2004 | Marc Larabee, Steven Beaven, Kathleen Blythe, Bryan Denson and Lori Tobias This story could have "legs" that take us all over the US and the world re: Islamoterrorism. Someone better start seriously thinking about these terrorists in Kosovo....talk about a world sactioned breeding ground--Bosnian Arrested in Madrid Bombings Probe The FBI analysts also found indications that whoever left the fingerprint on the bag involved in the Madrid bombings had some connection to the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, where international Islamic extremists have been active. Some of the...

<p>WASHINGTON — The U.S. inspector general has criticized the Homeland Security Department (search) for not having the tools necessary for border patrol to identify wanted criminals once they're detained.</p> <p>The U.S. Border Patrol (search) does not have the ability to run fingerprints from illegal aliens through a single database and get a full immigration and criminal history. The agency's I-DENT (search) system and the FBI's I-AFIS (search) system aren't integrated and won't be for another four years — two years later than anticipated.</p>

The John F. Kerry infidelity revelations at this time in the primary cycle appear to be a little strange. General Clark withdraws as his lustre fades and then, wham... the next day a major Kerry bombshell explodes...hmmmmmClark's candidacy was a Clinton manipulation of the nomination process. Clark was thrust into the process by Bill and Hill to offset what appeared to be a mounting Dean groundswell to capture the nomination.I have been saying since late summer the ticket will be Hillary/Clark. With Howard Dean gaining such momentum with the massive far left of the party the nomination was a real...

<p>WARSAW -- What was conceived as a feel-good meeting between Iraq-war allies has become much more serious because of new U.S. visa rules requiring visitors to be photographed and fingerprinted.</p> <p>Analysts say the United States will lose perhaps its best friend in Europe if Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski is unable to win relief from the policy when he meets President Bush at the White House today.</p>

Warsaw's Mayor to Cancel Visit WARSAW, Jan. 13 (Reuters) — The mayor of Warsaw said Tuesday that he would cancel a visit to the United States to protest its policy of fingerprinting visitors as part of new antiterror measures. The mayor, Lech Kaczynski, who leads a major right-wing party, was supposed to pay a visit in April to Chicago and New York, both home to large Polish communities. "I will go only when there will be no need for taking pictures and fingerprinting," Mr. Kaczynski told reporters. Poland had hoped that as a reward for its help in the war...

Key immigration tracking system coming to SFO Foreigners entering country will have to take photo, give fingerprints San Francisco International Airport will on Monday become one of 115 airports with a new system to electronically verify the identity of foreign tourists and track their whereabouts. Called US-VISIT, the system is a cornerstone of the Homeland Security Department's effort to prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and is a direct response to the sharpest criticism about why they happened. Almost immediately after the attacks, the nation's immigration officials were peppered with questions about how they let terrorists...

<p>Starting Monday, foreign visitors passing through customs at Sky Harbor International Airport will be digitally fingerprinted and photographed as part of a nationwide program to check their backgrounds and keep track of when they enter and leave the United States.</p>

Pakistan advised to fingerprint AmericansStaff Report WASHINGTON: Pakistan should follow the Brazilian example and start fingerprinting and photographing all arriving Americans, a community leader has proposed. The community leader, who did not wish to be identified, such is the atmosphere of intimidation which many Pakistanis have experienced here since 9/11, said one way the Bush administration can be made to realise what humiliation Pakistani travellers to the United States suffer on arrival is to “give visiting Americans a dose of the same medicine”. Brazil has shown the way and we should follow, he said. A report from the South American...

<p>RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazilian federal police said Thursday they were not ready to begin fingerprinting all U.S. citizens entering Brazil in line with a judge's sudden order to launch the program, which matches the treatment Brazilians get when the enter the United States.</p>

DECATUR, Mich. (AP) — The years Chuck Strickler spent as a welder provided him with the experience he needed as a welding inspector at power plants across the nation. But the welding also has left Strickler, 60, of Decatur, lacking a full set of intact fingerprints required under new, stepped-up security regulations at nuclear plants. Since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued the new rules in the wake of Sept. 11, the reams of documents Strickler has attesting to his identity no longer are sufficient. "I first ran into a problem with it three or four years ago," Strickler...

The record album signed by John Lennon for Mark David Chapman just hours before Chapman fatally shot him is being sold online.

Muslims Welcome Possible End of 'Special Registration' 11/21/03 3:50:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Ibrahim Hooper, 202-488-8787 or 202-744-7726, E-Mail: cair@cair-net.org; or Rabiah Ahmed, 202-488-8787 or 202-439-1441, E-Mail: rahmed@cair-net.org WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights organization today welcomed an apparent decision of the Bush administration to eliminate a visitor registration program that primarily targeted Muslim men and drew complaints from civil liberties groups. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was reacting to media reports that the Department of Homeland Security Government may announce an end to the special registration program within...

Some 25 foreign nations are planning to require visiting Americans to be fingerprinted, according to a prominent biometrics expert and president of the company that produces the computerized desktop booking stations used by many law enforcement authorities. The plans to screen American travelers represent a form of retaliation against new U.S. Department of Homeland Security requirements for foreign travelers entering the country, said Joseph J. Atick, president and chief executive officer of Identix, Inc., a biometrics company that won a five-year blanket purchase agreement for its TouchPrint 3000 line fingerprint biometric live scan booking stations and desktop systems, which will...

Identity cards for all Britons 'by 2013' PA News 11 November 2003 The cost of a passport will increase to £77 under plans for a compulsory national identity card, ministers said today. The controversial new cards will be held by everyone in Britain by 2013 and will be based on existing passports and possibly on driving licences in a £3 billion project. Home Secretary David Blunkett said the scheme would include "biometric" details such as someone's fingerprints or an image of their eye, stored on a microchip in each card. They will have to be produced to see a doctor,...

DUBAI: The US embassy in Abu Dhabi has become the first American mission in the region to start fingerprinting visa applicants from November 2, in a move in line with its government's global security measures. The State Department began collecting fingerprints of visa applicants at the embassy of the United States in Brussels on September 22, at the US Consulate in Frankfurt on September 24 and at the US embassies in San Salvador and Guatemala on September 29. The US embassy in the UAE capital has installed electronic scanners at its visa application counters to take applicants' fingerprints. "To facilitate...

DNA extractable from fingerprints NEW YORK, July 31 (UPI) -- Even if the only evidence forensic analysts can pull from a crime scene is a fingerprint smudged beyond recognition, a new technique developed by Canadian scientists soon could harvest enough DNA from the print to produce a genetic identity. The novel system can extract DNA in only 15 minutes, even if a print has been stored for a year. Scientists expect the invention to help crime-fighters solve mysteries, and already are in talks with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In addition, researchers predict the technology could be at least twice...

FREEP!! the Hildebeest in Ridgewood, NJ, on Friday, July 11th at 3 PM, I suggest you get there by 2 PM   Sponsored by the Tri-State Chapter of the  Free Republic   Hillary for President Coming Soon to Bookends BookEnds Hillary Rotten Clinton the Wicked Witch of the EastMeet Hillary Rodham Clinton as she signs; "Living History" on July 11th, at 3:00 PM. 232 E. Ridgewood Ave. Tel: 201 445-0726     Hillary Rodham ClintonThursday, July 11th – 3:00 PMHILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, U.S. Senator and Former First Lady, writes about her life from childhood through the White House Years...

Foreign visitors arriving at U.S. airports or seaports beginning Jan. 1, 2004, will have their travel documents scanned, fingerprints and photos taken and identification checked against terrorist watchlists. Homeland Security undersecretary Asa Hutchinson released details Monday of the department's new U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology, or U.S. VISIT, that will check the comings and goings of certain foreign travelers. The checks will apply to people who arrive in this country carrying visas, which last year was about 60 percent or 23 million of the foreign visitors, said Hutchinson, who oversees Border and Transportation Security. "In 99.9 percent of...

WASHINGTON, March 8 (AP) — Hobbyists who build and launch high-powered model rockets could soon be subject to background checks, fingerprinting and storage inspections. Under new provisions set to go into effect May 24 under the Homeland Security Act, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would place further restrictions on the fuel that powers the rockets. Sport rocketry attracts thousands of hobbyists across the country. The rockets can stand taller than an adult, soar miles into the sky and are designed to land intact nearby. The new rules will require buyers of the rocket fuel ammonium perchlorate composite...