Pubdate: Mon, 27 Oct 2003
Source: Florida Today (FL)
Copyright: 2003 Florida Today
Contact: http://www.floridatoday.com/forms/services/letters.htm
Website: http://www.flatoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/532

DATABASE ON CITIZENS AN OFFENSE TO AMERICA

It's starting to sound like a civil liberties nightmare about a 
totalitarian future -- except it's here now and millions of Americans are 
in its crosshairs.

We're talking about Matrix, an anti-terrorism super-database that combines 
reams of information -- correct or not -- on millions of people and 
delivers it to authorities instantly, whether the subject is innocent or 
guilty.

Set up and housed by a company called Seisint in Boca Raton, it's a 
private, for-profit project. It's federally funded, guarded by state police 
and appears to make an end run around laws forbidding the U.S. government 
from collecting routine data on its citizens.

We warned in August that Matrix is antithetical to the very meaning of 
democracy and should have been shut down.

Instead, the federal government just OK'd $12 million to expand it. Now, 
1,000 more Florida law enforcement agencies have joined, in addition to 200 
Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents.

Originally, 13 other states were going to participate, but six 
reconsidered, some to protect citizen's rights, others because of costs.

In the trend toward privatization, many states have turned over their 
public records-handling to private contractors. Now, those contractors can 
charge the states hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus monthly fees, to 
access their own records, and make Matrix work.

That situation alone generates questions. But more important is that 
Matrix, owned by Hank Asher, a former drug smuggler turned informant, puts 
millions of Americans under the potential threat of authority that can 
investigate in secret and use the information for purposes of which victims 
often would have no knowledge.

Beyond the threat to privacy, which undermines Fourth Amendment guarantees 
against unreasonable search, the inevitable errors in records could damage 
guiltless citizens.

For example, before Florida's 2000 presidential election, the state 
government hired a Texas company to purge convicted felons from the polls. 
But the company purged many non-felons, perhaps thousands, from the voting 
rolls -- all in error.

With Matrix, authorities -- which FDLE suggests soon might include the CIA 
- -- can rapidly gather a person's photo, address, former addresses, offense 
record, holdings, reading habits, political leanings and more, plus 
information on associates and possible relatives.

At least one danger is that use of information could be turned to personal 
business. Or political purposes.

Although Matrix access is limited, that promise is only as good as the 
reliability of the workers who tap into it. FDLE already fired one employee 
for misusing the system. And what say do citizens have about what the 
government would classify as "correct" use?

The Matrix system is an offense against the American people and Congress 
must put a halt to it -- now. 
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MAP posted-by: Perry Stripling