[IP] States Join in Building Terror Databas
[]
<http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-terror-database,0,4404005.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines>http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-terror-database,0,4404005.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
States Join in Building Terror Database
By JIM KRANE
AP Technology Writer
September 23, 2003, 9:31 PM EDT
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 a year and a half in
Florida, where police praise the crime-fighting tool as nimble and
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.
They complain that Matrix houses restricted police and government files on
colossal databases that sit in the offices of Seisint Inc., a Boca Raton,
Fla., company founded by a millionaire whom police say flew planeloads of
drugs into the country in the early 1980s.
"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 and expert in privacy issues. "If it's federally
funded, the federal government obviously has a huge interest in it."
Matrix was initially intended to track terrorists, as was the Pentagon's
Terrorism Information Awareness project, which sparked a congressional
uproar and got watered down.
As a dozen more states pool their criminal and government files with
Florida's, Matrix databases are expanding in size and power. Organizers
hope to coax more states to join, touting its usefulness in everyday policing.
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.
But California and Texas dropped out, citing, among other things, worries
over housing sensitive files at Seisint. And a competing data vendor,
ChoicePoint, decided not to bid on the project, saying it lacked adequate
privacy safeguards.
Aspects of the project appear designed to steer around federal laws that
bar the U.S. government from collecting routine data on Americans.
For instance, the project is billed as a tool for state and local police,
but organizers are considering giving access to the Central Intelligence
Agency, said Phil Ramer, special agent in charge of the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement's intelligence office.
In the 1970s, Congress barred the CIA from scanning files on average
Americans, after the agency was cited for spying on civil rights leaders.
"The CIA doesn't have this now," Ramer said. "That's a major political
issue we'll have to cross."
Florida officials have acknowledged that users of Matrix, which stands for
Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, can "monitor innocent
citizens."
Ramer 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.
Criminal history files in the database are maintained by 15 Seisint
employees, watched over by Florida state police, Ramer said.
Yet a Florida Department of Law Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated
Press shows potential lapses in oversight. The memo says background checks
on Seisint's Matrix workers took place only last month, more than a year
into the program, and a privacy policy governing the database's use has yet
to be finalized.
Seisint declined to comment, referring a reporter to Seisint's public
relations representative, Amber Zentis of Qorvis Communications, who asked
that questions be e-mailed. The company did not answer those questions.
* __
AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft contributed to this story.
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/