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Cover Story

Foreign government could end up controlling U.S. radio frequency identification system

By Judi McLeod
Wednesday, august 10, 2005

Toronto--The controversial Carlyle Group is poised to own the company that pioneered the new radio frequency identification system to be used on foreign visitors to the U.S.a.

The U.S. private equity firm took a 30 percent stake in British defense technology QinetiQ in 2003, pledging an initial public offering (IPO) within five years. The U.K. Ministry of Defense holds 56 percent of the company.

On august 3, QinetiQ said it had signed an agreement to buy U.S. firm apogen Technologies Inc. for $288-million.

"apogen is one of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Top 10 contractors and posted revenues of $205.1 million in fiscal 2004, QinetiQ said in a news release." (Reuters, London).

"Our strategy in the U.S. is to penetrate the defense and security markets," Sir John Chisholm said in the release.

apogen Technologies Inc. owns the technology for high tech scanning of persons entering and exiting the U.S.a. The system, which began testing at U.S.-Canada border crossings last week, requires scanning fingerprints and photographs of visitor's faces into a computer when someone who wants to enter the U.S. applies for a visa.

The Carlyle Group that invests pension funds in global defense and telecommunications companies has been dubbed "the ex-president's club". Its members have included former President George Bush and his former Secretary of State Frank Carlucci, former President Ronald Reagan's former defense secretary and former deputy director of the CIa. Canadian members have included Power Corp.'s Paul Desmarais, Bombardier's Laurent Beaudoin, former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. allan Gotlieb and current Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Frank McKenna.

The Carlyle Group previously listed James a. Baker, who works for the Department of Justice as the Counsel for Intelligence Policy, as its senior counselor.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began testing the US-VISIT Program, which uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology testing to more efficiently record the entries and exits of visitors who are currently issued an 1-94 (arrival-Departure Record) at borders. Five U.S. land border ports began testing the RFID technology on august 4, 2005 and will continue testing through early summer, 2006. The ports are Nogales East (Deconcini) and Nogales West (Mariposa) in arizona, alexandria Bay (Thousand Islands) in New York and Pacific Highway and Peace arch in Washington State.

US-VISIT is a continuum of security measures that collect biometric and biographic information from visitors at U.S. visa-issuing posts around the world, and upon their arrival in and departure from U.S. air, sea and land border ports.
Should the QinetiQ/apogen Technologies Inc. deal get approval, in effect a foreign government will control, or have immediate access to the process tracking foreign visitors to the U.S.

The same alarm bells that started ringing and subsequently derailed the recent Unocal deal, should be sending a compelling sovereignty message to the U.S. Senate.

Senators should consider the conflict of interest potential of James a. Baker.

Senior counsel for the Carlyle Group, Baker, who severed ties april 1, 2005, is also defending the Saudis against a trillion dollar lawsuit brought forward by the 9/11 families.

Surely, it must be the irony of ironies that Baker is on the board of a company that will control the fingerprint scans of people entering the USa, since Baker's Saudi clients are the ones responsible for the existence of QinetiQ and apogen.

QinetiQ is also about to go public.

The QinetiQ/apogen deal is subject to U.S. regulation.

S.O.S. to american senators: a foreign government americans won their independence from could end up in control of foreign visitors entering and exiting the U.S.


Dear Ms. McLeod:

I read your 8/10/05 commentary on Canada Free Press. Sadly, it is filled with factual inaccuracies and unsubstantiated assertions.

  • • Former President Bush, Frank Carlucci and James Baker all retired from Carlyle. Bush in October 2003 and Baker and Carlucci this past Spring.
  • • also, our Canadian advisory board was disbanded a year ago. Therefore, the people you cited, including Frank McKenna, are no longer advisory board members.
  • • Defense investing: we have less than one percent of our investments in defense.
  • • You say we are shadowy, a word that implies wrong-doing, but you provide no explanation to your readers. What does this mean? In case you didn't know, we're the ones with the 1,500-page website outlining who we are and what you do…though we have no obligation to. We issue hundreds of news releases informing the public of our investment activities. You on the other hand are the "award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media" who doesn't bother to check things before printing them.

I trust you will correct these inaccuracies immediately.

If you would like to address any of these issues, please call me at 202 729 5450.

Thank you.
Chris Ullman

Christopher W. Ullman
Director of Global Communications
THE CaRLYLE GROUP

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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