CLARKSBURG — The field of biometrics — the study and identification of characteristics or information specific to one individual — has existed for more than 100 years.
While speaking at Friday’s opening ceremony for the Department of Defenses’s new Defense Forensics and Biometrics Agency, which is located on the FBI’s Clarksburg campus in the Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Maj. Gen. David Glaser told a story about how the discipline began.
“We had a guy named William West who showed up at Leavenworth prison,” said Glaser, the Army’s top law enforcement officer. “And a guard thought to himself, ‘Wasn’t this guy already here?’ So they went back through their system, and there was a Will West and William West.”
Using rudimentary identifiers, like hair color and shoe size, the guards were able to determine that both Wests were indeed the same man, Glaser said.
“This pushed us to develop fingerprint techniques. That was a hundred years ago,” Glaser said.
Biometrics has come a long way since then, he said. Now, analysts trained in cutting-edge techniques and technology are able to empirically identify individuals based on characteristics like voice prints and iris scans.
The new agency in Clarksburg — which will house more than 100 experts working on projects that will impact the safety of Americans at home and abroad — represents an important “next step” toward the symbiotic partnership that the DOD and the FBI are trying to establish, Glaser said.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who attended Friday’s ceremony, said the new agency proves that great things can be accomplished, even when the people responsible are located away from centers of political power.
“It does show, I think, that all work of government doesn’t need to be done in or around the vicinity of Washington, D.C.,” she said.
The work done at the new agency will help to give the nation a leg up as its military service members and intelligence agents continue to engage in increasingly complex operations around the globe, Capito said.
“This will really make sure that bad actors around the world — North Korea and others — know that we’re on our tiptoes here and are certainly willing. We’ve got to be ready with more than just our hearts. We’ve got to be ready with our hands and our fighting spirit.”
U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., said the collaboration between the DOD and the FBI shows that interagency cooperation is possible and something that should be strived for.
“When I look around this room, I see a group of individuals who all have a stake in this,” he said. “Each and every one of you all here, regardless of your individual status, regardless of what team you are on, it’s about the mission. And that’s what’s great about this facility, we’ve got multiple individuals, from various teams, here, working together.”
Rod Rogers, a spokesman for Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., read a letter on behalf of the congressman, who was out of the country during Friday’s event.
“As you continue to carry about your mission, to protect and defend our global population, you have my unwavering support,” Rogers read. “Our goal must be consistent and that is, to continue to work together to grow and strengthen the program you have already undertaken.”