Faustine wrote:

New online PDFs of possible interest from the RAND Corporation:

Sociocultural Implications of Biometrics

The Army is considering how it can use biometric systems -- automated methods of authenticating an individual based on physical or behavioral characteristics -- to improve security, efficiency, and convenience. Recognizing that biometrics is not without controversy, however, the Army asked RAND's Arroyo Center to assist in an assessment of the legal, sociological and ethical implications. A new publication reports the findings. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1237/

Google also Mayfield v. Dalton, 109 F.3d 1423 (9th Cir.1997) which challenged a military DNA repository as violating the Fourth Amendment. Between the district court and the appellate, the military made some changes...shortening the holding period from 75 to 50 yrs, allowing for individualized destruction upon request after military service, delineating permissible uses, etc.-etc. Compare to the Brits, who are experimenting with chipping their soldiers: dog tags to pet chips. Although I'm on the consortium list, etc. My RAND pubs notice did not include the online version. Thanks, Faustine. Saved me some $. I always read your contributions. ~Aimee PS: Although elementary for many in here (but you are quite unusual), Understanding Surveillance Technologies by Julie K. Petersen, available on Amazon, has some "handy stuff" in it for a broad overview of surveillance technologies. (I always appreciate private notes to papers/refs on surveillance topics.)