Welcome to the Matrix (database on Americans)

[shraby]

In what civil liberties advocates call the most massive database surveillance program in U.S. history, the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, continues to compile billions of records on law-abiding citizens and receive federal funding, despite public outcry and suspicion.

A Florida-based company, Seisint, Inc., created the database shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, by combining the company's own commercial databases with law enforcement records.

Now law enforcement officials in participating states can comb the database to investigate ordinary crimes and terrorist threats. Matrix contains an unprecedented amount of information: current and past addresses and phone numbers, arrest records, real estate information, photographs of neighbors and business associates, car make, model and color, marriage and divorce records, voter registration records, hunting and fishing licenses, and more.

For example, a user could identify all brown-haired divorced male residents of Minneapolis who drive a red Toyota Camry and are registered to vote. The data can then be displayed in "social networking charts," showing connections between individuals, photo line-ups and "target maps," according to internal Seisint documents obtained by The New Standard after a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). One of the documents boasts, "When enough insignificant data is gathered and analyzed … IT BECOMES SIGNIFICANT." (original emphasis)

(more)

<http://www.antiwar.com/orig/baran.php?articleid=3004>

[tom_paine]

1. This is all well under way now. Big Brother is at the door

If the Busheviks maintain their Vampire's Grip on our Throats, in 2005 he will come through the door.