Federal Control: Matrix Database Mining

The federal government has joined with private industry to create an immense database of data on US citizens from many sources. The government will then be able to search the database, using "data mining" techniques. States are being asked to submit all of their information about their citizens. Apparently, the federal government wants to have access to all possible information about its people.

Matrix

MATRIX (Multistate Anti-TeRrorism Information eXchange) is the latest data mining program to emerge from the government.  This surveillance system combines information about individuals from government databases and private-sector data companies.  It then makes those dossiers available for search by government officials and combs through the millions of files in a search for “anomalies” that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity.

Source: ACLU, March 8, 2005

MATRIX reloaded? Utah rethinks issue

A state commission on Thursday began wrestling with whether Utah should return to the controversial MATRIX consortium or some other law enforcement information-sharing system — though members realize that privacy and oversight concerns abound.
The Utah Technology Commission wants its staff to look into several aspects of the issue, including whether Utah's Government Records Access Management Act needs to be updated and whether legislation is needed to make the commission or some other entity the state's oversight agency.
Source: Deseret Morning News (online), June 18, 2004

U.S. Erodes High-Tech Privacy Protections

When Congress curtailed Pentagon research it feared would ensnare innocent Americans in the terrorism fight, it also allowed the Bush administration to eliminate two projects to protect citizens' privacy from futuristic tools.
As a result, the government is quietly pressing ahead with research into high-powered computer data-mining technology without the two most advanced privacy protections developed for those terror-fighting tools.
Source: MyWay.com, March 14, 2003

Matrix Expands to Wisconsin

Even as states retreat from participating in a controversial interstate antiterrorism database that holds billions of records of ordinary Americans' activities, Wisconsin has decided to join the program.
The head of Wisconsin's division of criminal investigation, James R. Warren, signed on to join the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, on Feb. 11, said Tom Berlinger, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which runs the program.
Source: Wired News, March 9, 2004

U.S. Still Mining Terror Data

The government is still financing research to create powerful tools that could mine millions of public and private records for information about terrorists despite an uproar last year over fears it might ensnare innocent Americans.
Congress prevented the Pentagon from developing the terrorist tracking technology because of the outcry over privacy implications. But some of those projects from retired Adm. John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness effort were transferred to U.S. intelligence offices, according to congressional, federal and research officials.
Source: Wired News, February 23, 2004

Privacy Hero of the Month: Utah Gov. Olene Walker

One state's database that isn't in the system is Utah.
That's because the state's new governor, Olene Walker, has halted the state's participation in the database after learning that former Gov. Mike Leavitt signed the state up for it on the sly before taking his new Beltway job as EPA Administrator. According to the Deseret Morning News, Leavitt "never bothered to reveal details of the program to Utah citizens or to state lawmakers." Leavitt had thrown data on Utahns including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, property records, motor vehicle information and credit history into a database available to government agencies in eight states and managed by a private company in Florida.

Source: nccprivacy.org, not dated but in February 2004

Matrix Plan Fuels Privacy Fears

Although privacy worries led several states to pull out of a federally funded crime and terrorism database project, others are actively considering joining and thereby sharing information on their citizens, The Associated Press has learned.
Mark Zadra, chief investigator for Florida state police, which runs the Matrix project, said organizers have given presentations to more than 10 Northeastern and Midwestern states in recent weeks, arguing at each stop that the database is an invaluable law enforcement tool.
Source: Wired News, February 2, 2004

Dossier program alarms Utahns

It sounds like a sci-fi thriller: a super computer program that gathers dossiers on every single man, woman and child — everything from birth and marriage and divorce history to hunting licenses and car license plates. Even every address you have lived at down to the color of your hair.
It sounds surreal, but former Gov. Mike Leavitt signed Utah's 2.4 million residents up for a pilot program — ironically called MATRIX — that does just that. And he never bothered to reveal details of the program to Utah citizens or to state lawmakers who, upon learning of the program on Capitol Hill this week, are now worried the state could be involved in a program that jeopardizes basic civil liberties.
Source: Deseret Morning News (online), January 29, 2004

What is Matrix

The American Civil Liberties Union today filed simultaneous state “Freedom of Information Act” requests in Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania about those states’ participation in the new “MATRIX” database surveillance system.  It also released an Issue Brief explaining the problems with the program, which also operates in Florida and Utah.
“Congress killed the Pentagon’s ‘Total Information Awareness’ data mining program, but now the federal government is trying to build up a state-run equivalent,” said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program.

Source: ACLU, October 30, 2003

Why we should fear the Matrix

The Matrix is run by a private corporation -- Seisint Inc. of Boca
Raton, Florida, -- on behalf of a cooperative group of state governments. However, it is, at least in part, federally funded -- and may, in future, allow federal access. The program has received $4 million from the Justice Department. It has been promised a further $8 million from the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, news reports indicate that Matrix officials have said they are considering giving access to the CIA.
Source: CNN (Law Center), October 30, 2003

Georgia runs from the MATRIX

The state of Georgia has pulled out of the U.S. Department of Justice sponsored MATRIX information collection program, leaving data only on its felons and sexual offenders behind in the Orwellian database.

Source: The Register (online), October 10, 2003

U.S. Backs Florida's New Counterterrorism Database

Police in Florida are creating a counterterrorism database designed to give law enforcement agencies around the country a powerful new tool to analyze billions of records about both criminals and ordinary Americans.
Organizers said the system, dubbed Matrix, enables investigators to find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before, combining police records with commercially available collections of personal information about most American adults. It would let authorities, for instance, instantly find the name and address of every brown-haired owner of a red Ford pickup truck in a 20-mile radius of a suspicious event.

Source: Washington Post (online), August 6, 2003

Comments Received by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts in response to Request for Comment on Privacy and Public Access to Electronic Case Files.

Each comment has a number, date, and where provided, a geographical identifier.   In cases where the comment was sent by an individual with no business or professional affiliation noted, the name of the commentor is not included.  In cases where the comment was sent by an individual in a professional capacity or on behalf of a group or organization, the name of the commentor and/or the name of the group is included.

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts reserves the right not to post a comment, or any part thereof, which contains irrelevant or scurrilous material. Footnotes and endnotes attached to comments have been omitted.

Source: privacy.uscourts.gov, 11/08/2000 and later