LOS ANGELES, Nov 22: A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the “war on terror”, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Acquisitions and Technology, said the Pentagon was developing a prototype database to seek “patterns indicative of terrorist activity”.

Aldridge said the database would collect and use software to analyse consumer purchases in hopes of catching terrorists before it was too late.

Examples he cited were: sudden and large cash withdrawals, one- way air or rail travel, rental car transactions and purchases of firearms, chemicals or agents that could be used to produce biological or chemical weapons.

It would also combine consumer information with visa records, passports, arrest records or reports of suspicious activity given to law enforcement or intelligence services.

“What this is talking about is making us a nation of suspects and I am sorry, the United States citizens should not have to live in fear of their own government and that is exactly what this is going to turn out to be,” Chuck Pena, senior defence policy analyst at the Cato Institute, told Fox News.