Bush seeks money for biometrics at borders
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The administration yesterday requested $27.1 billion in emergency homeland security appropriations from Congress, including $5.8 million for 30 biometric systems at U.S. ports of entry with links to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The links would tell Immigration and Naturalization Service agents whether an apprehended person has a criminal history.
The administration yesterday requested $27.1 billion in emergency homeland security appropriations from Congress, including $5.8 million for 30 biometric systems at U.S. ports of entry with links to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The links would tell Immigration and Naturalization Service agents whether an apprehended person has a criminal history.
In other requests, the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration would receive $10 million for driver's license fraud detection and prevention, plus $5.1 million to coordinate license registration with Social Security number verification.
The Research and Special Projects Administration, also part of Transportation, would receive $1.3 million for hardware and software upgrades to improve classified and unclassified information exchange at the newly formed Transportation Information Operations Center, which replaces the Crisis Management Center.
The administration asked for $17 million for the Defense Department's classified portion of the National Communications System for use by the president and other key officials. DOD would receive $10 million for emergency e-mail network security and $5 million for Internet early warning system security.
The General Services Administration would get $2.5 million to strengthen the Simple Network Management Protocol, which numerous networked systems rely on. GSA would use part of the money for a program management office to assess threats to all network protocols and identify preventive or remedial actions.
An additional $19.3 million would go to the National Science Foundation's Cyber Corps scholarship-for-service program, which makes awards to qualified institutions for undergraduate and graduate students studying computer security.
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