The governments new secret weapon, revealed guessed at

So Bob Woodward has been saying the government has a new secret weapon that’s a game changer the same way the tank made WWI tactics obsolete. Here’s a summary from Mark Irvine over at the PCR blog:

We still don’t know enough to evaluate Woodward’s extraordinary claim, but today’s Los Angeles Timesprovides a better descriptionof what he was alluding to in the interview. At least part of the secret is a car battery-sized device attached to a predator drone used to identify and target individuals even while indoors:

But officials said the previously unacknowledged devices have become a powerful part of the American arsenal, allowing the tracking of human targets even when they are inside buildings or otherwise hidden from Predator surveillance cameras. Equally important, officials said, the systems have significantly speeded up decisions on when to strike. The technology gives remote pilots a means beyond images from the Predator’s lens of confirming a target’s identity and precise location.

Putting together the pieces, we’ve got a technology that can work through walls and provide a secondary form of ID. I don’t think heat sensors or sonar imaging would help on the identification. Similarly, I don’t think we could pick up a scent through walls. So that probably leaves sound. In various spy games and movies I’ve seen heartbeat sensors that go through doors and laser eavesdropping tech that can listen through windows using vibrations. This would seem like the logical extension of that stuff, assuming it actually exists.

It would also be relatively easy to build up a voiceprint database. Many of our enemies are kind enough to provide videos taunting us, and hopefully the NSA can pick up some of the rest. It may also be possible to get a voiceprint ID without being able to fully eavesdrop. Probably the lowest registers are easiest to pick up through other materials, think subwoofers, so we might just be comparing bass samples to what we have on file. The fidelity necessary for an identification might be lower than the fidelity required to understand the conversation.

Anyways, this is entirely speculation, if I knew things I wouldn’t be saying things, so take it for what it’s worth.