Biometrics + Police = Death of asking for ID

According to this Al Jazeera article, police and sheriff forces in the U.S. will soon be armed with the Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS)–a device that will carry out biometric diagnostics on suspected individuals. The device will allow officers to:

photograph and plot key points and features on your face (breaking the numbers down into biometric data), scan your iris and take your fingerprints on the spot.

Of course the legality of these devices, especially in light of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (illegal search and seizure), is now in hot debate. Is a road-side iris scan an illegal search? Can fingerprinting on the spot be justified in a court of law? And about false positives? Where will all of this bio-data be stored and who controls that data?

Also, a major sticking point seems to be that these devices we made with the military and military situations in mind–not domestic law enforcement.

But in a world of Google Street View, Facebook facial recognition, and smartphone GPS tracking, will anyone *really* put up a fight on this? Should they?

- Jake Perry