Welcome to the Matrix
Inside the Government’s Secret, Corporate-Run Mega-Database
"When enough insignificant data is gathered and analyzed…IT BECOMES SIGNIFICANT"
In what civil liberties advocates call the most massive database surveillance program in US 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 September 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."
Seisint sells database access to individual states. Sixteen states went through a pilot program, but after negative media coverage and concern from citizens, politicians, and even law enforcement officials, all but Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Ohio have decided to stop using Matrix.
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=662
From:
Aftermath News
Top Stories - December 2nd, 2004
"When enough insignificant data is gathered and analyzed…IT BECOMES SIGNIFICANT"
In what civil liberties advocates call the most massive database surveillance program in US 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 September 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."
Seisint sells database access to individual states. Sixteen states went through a pilot program, but after negative media coverage and concern from citizens, politicians, and even law enforcement officials, all but Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Ohio have decided to stop using Matrix.
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=662
From:
Aftermath News
Top Stories - December 2nd, 2004
Starmail - 3. Dez, 17:06
