[IP] The Collapse of MATRIX
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 09:37:56 -0500
From: BSteinhardt <BSteinhardt@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: The Collapse of MATRIX
X-Sender: BSteinhardt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: Dave Farber <farber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Dave,
MATRIX-- the Total Information Awareness Program for the States-- is
collapsing of its own very heavy weight. John Schwartz's story from today's
NY Times chronicling this collapse might be of interest to IP readers.
Barry Steinhardt
ACLU
March 15, 2004
Privacy Fears Erode Support for a Network to Fight Crime
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
atrix, a controversial multistate program that hoped to find criminals or
terrorists by sifting through databases of public and private information,
has lost more than two-thirds of its member states and appears to be
withering under its critics' attacks.
The Matrix program - the name is derived from Multistate Anti-Terrorism
Information Exchange - was originally developed for the state of Florida by
Seisint, a Florida company, in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
At its peak, 16 states were members, and the program received pledges of
$12 million from the federal Department of Homeland Security and the
Department of Justice.
Supporters of Matrix envisioned it as a powerful computer-driven program
that could integrate information from disparate sources - like vehicle
registrations, driver's license data, criminal history and real estate
records - and analyze it for patterns of activity that could help law
enforcement investigations. Promotional materials for the company put it
this way: "When enough seemingly insignificant data is analyzed against
billions of data elements, the invisible becomes visible."
This kind of system has long been the stuff of dreams for high-technology
companies, which saw in it both a valuable service to society and a chance
to recapture profits after a long technology downturn. But it also drew
strong opposition from civil liberties organizations, which found Orwellian
overtones in the collection and analysis of database information that would
include people who have committed no crime. The American Civil Liberties
Union filed Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover the inner
workings of the system, and other high-tech policy groups, including the
Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, have voiced concerns.
The announcements made last week by New York and Wisconsin that they were
withdrawing from Matrix means that only five states remain actively
involved- Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Ohio.
Utah has suspended its participation, and in January Gov. Olene S. Walker
appointed an oversight committee to evaluate security and privacy issues.
Supporters of Matrix, including the Florida officials who have worked with
it from the beginning, say that it merely gives law enforcement agencies
quicker access to data that they already have the legal authority to see.
"It's an extremely valuable tool," said Mark Zadra, the chief of
investigations for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
States provide information like arrests and convictions, Social Security
numbers, driver's license data and birth and marriage records. Seisint, the
company that created Matrix, then adds what the company has described as
"in excess of 7 billion public records from thousands of locations on U.S.
individuals and businesses, including information about neighbors,
relatives and associates."
Matrix officials have declined to describe all the data that goes into the
system, but they insist that nothing goes into Matrix that police would
need a subpoena or other judicial order to obtain, like full credit reports
or library lending records.
Officials in Florida point to success stories like a hit-and-run accident
involving a white, 2000-2002 Chevrolet Avalanche that left the scene. The
system was able to provide a list of all the vehicles fitting that
description within a 10-mile radius of the accident. Investigators were
able to find the Chevrolet, according to Florida officials.
But opponents of the program say the ability of computer networks to
combine and sift mountains of data greatly amplifies police surveillance
power, putting innocent people at greater risk of being entangled in data
dragnets. The problem is compounded, they say, in a world where many
aspects of daily life leave online traces.
In a recent report on the program, the A.C.L.U. called Matrix "a body blow
to the core American principle that the government will leave people alone
unless it has good reason to suspect them of wrongdoing."
The same critics have called Matrix a state-run version of Total
Information Awareness, a program that was being developed in the Pentagon
to search an even broader array of databases for patterns of terrorist
activity. Congress froze financing for that program last year in response
to a public outcry over the privacy implications of the system.
Opponents of the Pentagon program regarded the development of Matrix as a
sign that the bubble was simply moving under the wallpaper: with the
federal program blocked, some surveillance functions were being shifted to
the states. And as Matrix started to draw attention, member states began to
drop out.
"When these programs get exposed to the light of day, they get shut down,"
said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at
the A.C.L.U.
Mr. Steinhardt said that his organization was worried that other, similar
programs might be operating more stealthily. "While we're gratified by the
demise of T.I.A. and the continuing collapse of Matrix, there's a much
larger phenomenon of widespread surveillance that still occurs out there,"
he said. "What we're not sure about is what's still operating underground."
In leaving the program, New York said the network's shrinking size was a
deciding factor. A March 9 letter from Steven F. Cumoletti, the assistant
deputy superintendent of the New York State Police, to Commissioner Guy
Tunnell of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and chairman of the
Matrix executive committee, said, "Unfortunately, instead of increasing the
number of participating states over time to improve the potential benefits
of the pilot, to date nearly two-thirds of the initial states have opted
out of the project."
James W. McMahon, director of the New York State Office of Public Security,
said in an interview that the program "seemed to be going backwards instead
of going forward." New York, he said, had never provided information on its
own citizens to the program.
Matrix has been especially controversial because its technology was
developed by Seisint, a private company in Florida whose founder, Hank
Asher, was involved in the 1980's with a group of cocaine smugglers,
according to court records. He was not charged, and became an informant.
Mr. Asher resigned from the company last year.
Most of the states have cited tight budgets in their withdrawal from the
program. "Money is always an issue, regardless of who you deal with, even
in the most noble of causes," said Clay Jester, the Matrix coordinator for
the Institute for Intergovernmental Research, the nonprofit organization
that administers the program.
"If you see there's a significant investment you're going to have to make
down the road, you may choose not to see the potential benefits," he said.
"When it comes down to new cars or this great new database application,
it's easier to show somebody a car."
But Liz Krueger, a New York state senator from Manhattan, who opposed
Matrix, said that the real issue was privacy. "Even in a time of increased
security, we have to be perhaps even more vigilant to make sure that
fundamental rights to privacy are protected," said Ms. Krueger, a Democrat.
"The more people knew about it and thought about it, the more dangerous
they thought this exercise was."
Mr. Zadra, the Florida investigator, said that the program was intended for
fighting crime, not surveillance, and that its creators had included
privacy safeguards. "We've gone overboard to put in security, and put in
privacy controls," he said. He acknowledged that the system could be abused
by some law enforcement officers, but said that every profession had bad
actors. Matrix, he said, was too valuable to abandon because of such concerns.
He said that the program was "not quite as effective" if states do not
provide their data, but said that there was enough information to be
gleaned from other publicly available databases to make the powerful search
capabilities of Matrix valuable. He said, for example, that even if a state
refused to provide driver's license information to Matrix, that information
is often available from private databases.
"If there was no other state data but Florida's, we would want to be
continuing the project with no other data but Florida's," he said.
Mr. Zadra said proponents of the program were "moving forward, and meeting
with other states that have expressed interest." But he acknowledged that
no announcements of new states coming into the program were imminent.
Mr. McMahon, the New York law enforcement official, said the importance of
a program like Matrix could best be shown in the case of a child's
kidnapping, when "you've got minutes instead of hours" to prevent a tragedy.
"You might be able to save somebody's life in producing the information you
need," he suggested, as in, for instance, quickly finding the names of
convicted sex offenders who own a specific model of car.
Mr. Zadra also used kidnapping as an example of database use, citing the
possibility of a law enforcement official's having to tell the parents of a
kidnapped child that " 'we did have a tool, but we can't use that tool any
more, and I can't find your daughter.' How sad would that be?"
Others can worry about hypothetical threats to privacy, he said.
"Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to solve crimes with the
best technology available."
Ultimately, he said, "It really comes down to trust. Do you trust law
enforcement to do what is right?"
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