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Privacy advocates fear matrix { September 24 2003 }

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   http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-terror24.html

http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-terror24.html

Privacy advocates fear 'Matrix' database
September 24, 2003

BY JIM KRANE

NEW YORK -- While privacy worries are frustrating the Pentagon's plans for a far-reaching database to combat terrorism, a similar project is quietly taking shape with the participation of more than a dozen states -- and $12 million in federal funds.

The database project, created so states and local authorities can track would-be terrorists as well as criminal fugitives, is being built and housed in the offices of a private company but will be open to some federal law enforcers and perhaps even U.S. intelligence agencies.

Dubbed "Matrix," the database has been in use for 18 months in Florida, where police praise the crime-fighting tool as exhaustive. It cross-references the state's driving records and restricted police files with billions of pieces of public and private data, including credit and property records.

But privacy advocates, officials in two states and a competing data vendor have branded Matrix as playing fast and loose with Americans' private details.

Matrix houses restricted police and government files on databases that sit in the offices of Seisint Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla., company.

''It's federally funded, it's guarded by state police but it's on private property? That's very interesting,'' said Christopher Slobogin, a University of Florida law professor.

It gives investigators access to personal data, like boat registrations and property deeds, without the government possibly violating the 1974 Privacy Act by owning the files.

Florida officials have acknowledged that users of Matrix, which stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, can ''monitor innocent citizens.''

Phil Ramer, special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's intelligence office, and others say, however, that unscrupulous spying will be prevented through Florida police oversight of Matrix users, along with audits and background checks on people with access to the database.

AP






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