Ugg
Oct 30, 2003, 07:23 PM
Link (http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16985)
Civil libertarians heaved a sigh of relief when Congress voted in late September to end funding for John Poindexter’s Total (aka Terrorism) Information Awareness (TIA) Program. But the controversy over this attempt to collect and compile information about the activities of American citizens may have diverted attention from a similar state-based program with equally disturbing implications.
Shortly after the attacks of September 11th, law enforcement officials in Florida began using a TIA-like system called MATRIX, short for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. MATRIX enables investigators to find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before. Created to enable state and local authorities to track would-be terrorists as well as criminal fugitives, the database is housed in the offices of a private Florida-based company, Seisint.
MATRIX was developed by Hank Asher, a wealthy data entrepreneur and founder of Seisint. According to news reports, Asher called Florida police right after the attacks, claiming he could pinpoint the hijackers and others who might pose a risk of terrorist activity. He offered to make this powerful law enforcement database available quickly, for free. Asher, reportedly a former government informant involved with drug smuggling, resigned from Seisint at the end of August following a series of critical newspaper reports. These reports also reminded Florida residents that it was Asher’s former company, Database Technologies, that administered the contract that stripped thousands of African Americans from the Florida voter rolls before the 2000 election, erroneously contending that they were felons.
The scary part is that the Dept. of HL Security is funding this and the company's employees didn't have a background check until a year after the program was begun. It looks like a backdoor attempt to revive the TIA.
Civil libertarians heaved a sigh of relief when Congress voted in late September to end funding for John Poindexter’s Total (aka Terrorism) Information Awareness (TIA) Program. But the controversy over this attempt to collect and compile information about the activities of American citizens may have diverted attention from a similar state-based program with equally disturbing implications.
Shortly after the attacks of September 11th, law enforcement officials in Florida began using a TIA-like system called MATRIX, short for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. MATRIX enables investigators to find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before. Created to enable state and local authorities to track would-be terrorists as well as criminal fugitives, the database is housed in the offices of a private Florida-based company, Seisint.
MATRIX was developed by Hank Asher, a wealthy data entrepreneur and founder of Seisint. According to news reports, Asher called Florida police right after the attacks, claiming he could pinpoint the hijackers and others who might pose a risk of terrorist activity. He offered to make this powerful law enforcement database available quickly, for free. Asher, reportedly a former government informant involved with drug smuggling, resigned from Seisint at the end of August following a series of critical newspaper reports. These reports also reminded Florida residents that it was Asher’s former company, Database Technologies, that administered the contract that stripped thousands of African Americans from the Florida voter rolls before the 2000 election, erroneously contending that they were felons.
The scary part is that the Dept. of HL Security is funding this and the company's employees didn't have a background check until a year after the program was begun. It looks like a backdoor attempt to revive the TIA.
