Turf battles over sharing fingerprints create security danger, warns DOJ OIG.(EPN News Roundup)(Brief Article)

Emergency Preparedness News, January, 2005

The squabbling among federal officials over how to share fingerprint files "creates a risk that a terrorist could enter the country undetected," according to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG).

The 2002 Border Security Act requires DOJ, DHS, and the State Department to create an integrated, automated biometric fingerprint system. The process is now stalled, found the OIG, because the departments cannot agree "on a uniform method for collecting fingerprint information or on the extent to which federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies will have direct access to biometric fingerprint records.

"Meanwhile, the majority of visitors to the United States still are not checked directly against" the FBI's Criminal...

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