BS: O, Brave New World: TIA Round 2

Subject: O, Brave New Wolrd: TIA Round 2
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 10:16 PM

From USA Today, another reminder of Huxley's nightmares:

High-tech microscopes expose Americans' private lives
By Don Campbell

Too many of us (accept) the argument that the concept of personal privacy in the Internet era is as outdated as the Model T.

Americans can get pretty upset about the ways in which modern technology drives us nuts — such as telemarketers who disrupt our dinner and spam e-mailers who make pornographic sales pitches.

But a more insidious invasion of Americans' privacy quietly has taken root in Florida. It has received little attention from the media except in Florida and a handful of other states being recruited to join the enterprise. The project underscores how our fascination with technology blinds us to violations of our privacy — and highlights the inadequacy of today's mishmash of federal and state privacy laws.

"MATRIX," an acronym for Multistate Anti-Terrorist Information Exchange, is, according to its creator, the largest database on the planet, with more than 20 billion records. Working with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and $12 million in federal funding, a company called Seisint designed MATRIX with the objective of compiling an electronic dossier on every citizen in the nation.

Not surprisingly, the cover story is that MATRIX is needed to fight terrorism. If that doesn't ping the strings of your patriotic heart, it's also being touted as the cat's meow when it comes to catching kidnappers and child molesters.

In fact, it is eerily similar to the Pentagon scheme called Total Information Awareness, which Congress pulled the plug on this year. The brain behind MATRIX is wealthy Floridian Hank Asher, a computer whiz, big-bucks political donor, buddy of the recently retired FDLE head and — according to newspaper reports — a man who recently admitted to the FDLE that he smuggled drugs in the early 1980s.

The pitch to other states from FDLE and Seisint goes like this: Send us — at your expense — all your drivers' license and vehicle registration data on everybody, along with your criminal history files. We'll mix them in with other government and "commercially available" data that Seisint already has compiled. Then, we'll sell you access to the data for, say, $1.7 million a year. And don't fret: Except for law enforcement personnel in participating states, only about 20 Seisint employees will have access to the data. It'll be secure.

With the push of a button, according to Seisint and FDLE officials, MATRIX will spew out individuals' Social Security numbers, pictures, birth dates, current addresses, old addresses going back 30 years, phone numbers and the names of others living at their addresses. Credit applications and credit reports, descriptions of properties they own, when they bought them, what they paid to whom, the property taxes paid, their driving histories and violations records and their driver's license and vehicle registration information all will be shown. So will the names, pictures, phone numbers, birth dates and addresses going back 20 to 30 years of their relatives, associates and neighbors.

My first reaction on reading this was that if anyone believes this kind of data would be secure in the hands of a private company, I'd like to sell them some choice oceanfront property I own in Kansas.

Then I read that the interim director of FDLE was prepared to do business with Asher's firm until the St. Petersburg newspaper questioned Asher's background. When the FDLE began to dig further into his past, Asher suddenly cut his ties with Seisint.

Fortunately, not everybody has been that sanguine. Georgia recently turned down FDLE's request for driver's licenses and vehicle registration information after the attorney general ruled it would violate state law — and after reports about the program prompted a public outcry. One Georgia prosecutor who was given a demonstration of MATRIX, Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, said, "It's incredibly impressive, but it's also very scary."

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You ever get the feeling that all the things that couldn't happen here are now happening here?

Chilling.

A

Subject: RE: BS: O, Brave New World: TIA Round 2
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 10:56 PM

Well, since "they" are listenin'... ahhh, kiss my boney Wse Ginny butt, Matrix! An' if ya got anyone else who likes to keep their noses in other folks business, send 'em right up here in the Blue Ridge Mountans and they can get in line to al.so kiss my boner Wes Ginny butt...

Like, welcome to Johnnie "good nazi" Ashcroft's America. Hope all you Rebubs are enjoyin' yer "less Governemnt, less intrasiveness" world that your guys have brought to yer danged lives....

Bobert

Sorry, Amos... But all these folks snoopin' an' lurkin', like a bunch of pimpled faced preverts, isn't what I thought we were gonna be worrying ourselves over at this point in our lives...

Subject: RE: BS: O, Brave New World: TIA Round 2
From: Mickey191
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 11:20 PM

Positively frightening. Someone told me years ago there would come a time in this country, where we'd be required to have an info. chip implanted. I thought it absurd & paranoid, I'm not laughing anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: O, Brave New World: TIA Round 2
From: harpgirl
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 11:30 PM

Flori-DUH! Love it or leave it!

Subject: RE: BS: O, Brave New World: TIA Round 2
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Nov 03 - 12:31 AM

In context, harpgirl, that seems an odd comment.