'Matrix' Offers Law Agencies Faster Access to Americans' Personal Records
In a clever runaround after Congressional outrage over the TIA program, the DOJ is is funding a new, Florida-based program called The Matrix". Created by someone who offered to be a federal drug informant, who's already lost several contracts because of his background, this will allow state and federal officials to correlate criminal and private databases.
Organizers said the system, dubbed Matrix, enables investigators to find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before, combining police records with commercially available collections of personal information about most American adults. It would let authorities, for instance, instantly find the name and address of every brown-haired owner of a red Ford pickup truck in a 20-mile radius of a suspicious event.
The state-level program, aided by federal funding, is poised to expand across the nation at a time when Congress has been sharply critical of similar data-driven systems on the federal level, such as a Pentagon plan for global surveillance and an air-passenger-screening system.
DOJ, despite clear and overwhelming Congressional disapproval, decided to fund a similiar, highly intrusive program, but on the state level. In many ways, this makes TIA looks like childplay.
Some civil liberties groups fear Matrix will dramatically lower the threshold for government snooping because other systems don't allow searches of criminal and commercial records with such ease or speed.
"It's going to make fishing expeditions so much more convenient," said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that monitors privacy issues. "There's going to be a push to use it for many different kinds of purposes."
The Justice Department has provided $4 million to expand the Matrix program nationally and will provide the computer network for information sharing among the states, according to documents and interviews. The Department of Homeland Security has pledged $8 million, state officials said.
At least 135 police agencies in the state have signed up for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement database service, which began operation more than a year ago. At least a dozen states -- including Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan -- said they want to add their records.
In some ways, Matrix resembles other data-driven counterterrorism initiatives started since the 2001 attacks. The Pentagon's controversial Terrorism Information Awareness program also sought to use personal data in new ways, but on a far larger scale. The idea, started by retired admiral John Poindexter, was to create a global data-surveillance system that might find subtle signs of imminent threats. Lawmakers sharply limited the program's funding several months ago, and now some intend to shut it down.
A senior official overseeing the project acknowledged it could be intrusive and pledged to use it with restraint. "It's scary. It could be abused. I mean, I can call up everything about you, your pictures and pictures of your neighbors," said Phil Ramer, special agent in charge of statewide intelligence. Hit a buttun, up comes a dossier and current address. In reality, it can take days and court orders to compile all this information. The problem is that the potential for abuse is tremendous and there is no guarantee that this information will not be turned against the government by corrupt officials.
Also, there is no guarantee that this system will be accurate. Clairol and contact lenses can invalidate any number of searches. This is an unwise program, that will be subject to Congressional investigations and challenged by lawsuits from it's victims. Instead of relying on common sense and trust, yet one more dubious, politically dangerous techological solution gets dredged up.
Today's nightmare, "I'm from the US government and I'm here to protect you". It seems that Ashcroft's 'assault on the Constitution', with Bad Ideas like TIA, never die and have more resurrections than Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees.
In a clever runaround after Congressional outrage over the TIA program, the DOJ is is funding a new, Florida-based program called 
