As the war draws down, however, the collection of so much personal information has raised questions about how data gathered during wartime should be used during times of peace, and with whom that information should be shared.Lost in the sea of articles about 3M's acquisition of Cogent and caste in the Indian census, is this article contemplating:
The future of the biometric data the US military has generated during the Iraq war [Boston.com].
It's an important question, balancing the legitimate duties and needs of a new government with the potential harm that could come to innocent individuals in the event that the information is misused; and the article does the issue justice.
The good news is that the government of Iraq is democratic. It is a nascent democracy, but a democracy nonetheless. Historically, democratic societies have been better at balancing the rights of individuals with the primacy of the state than non-democratic regimes.
The fact that this is an issue at all, reflects that Iraq has entered into a new phase of its history. If Iraqis were living under a dictatorship or existing in a colonial status, this article never would have been written.
