Houssam Azzam was 17 in 2004 when the U.S. military took over his hometown of Fallujah and detained him as part of a roundup of young men in western Iraq.
His photo, fingerprints, and iris scans were entered into a database, alongside a trove of information about him and his family, even though he said he was only ever involved in peaceful protests against the U.S. presence.
"They were occupying forces. They violated an entire country's rights so of course they would violate an individual's human rights," he said, referring to the U.S. retaining his biometric data.