Dumping of military equipment at Tacoma landfill spurs inquiry

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/10/25/2856373/dumping-of-military-equiptment.html



Dozens of U.S. Army HIIDE4 biometric collection devices were dropped at the Tacoma landfill last week. They’re commonly used by soldiers in Afghanistan.

Dumping of military equipment at Tacoma landfill spurs inquiry
By ADAM ASHTON — Staff writer
Published: October 25, 2013

Army police have opened an investigation into a pile of military equipment that was dropped off at the Tacoma landfill last week, a spokesman for Joint Base Lewis-McChord said Friday.

Photographs of the material showed dozens of biometric scanning devices soldiers use in Afghanistan to collect fingerprints and iris scans of people they encounter on patrols.

They’re common tools among infantry units, but could be used by any troops heading outside the wire to meet with Afghans. Lewis-McChord has three infantry brigades that contain about 13,000 soldiers.

The devices, known as Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE), would not have much use for civilians. Soldiers use them to enroll foreigners in a database that can be checked to identify insurgents. They’ve been standard equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.