'Matrix' Offers Law Agencies Faster Access to Americans' Personal Records

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.

The state-level program, aided by federal funding, is poised to expand across the nation at a time when Congress has been sharply critical of similar data-driven systems on the federal level, such as a Pentagon plan for global surveillance and an air-passenger-screening system.

Washington Post

[Edited on 6-8-2003 by MiStErBeLLaTrIx]

That's really creepy! I mean...what next? Send Sentinels out to find so called "Terrorists"? But really...what if somthing happens....people see a man with blond hair coming out of a blue truck...but yet his licence plate is not from the state that the "suspicious event" happened in...what do they do then? Thats what I don't get about this.

Ha, Ha, Ha I dont live in america so im ok! but seriously though you americans are really losing some seriously privacy, its also getting quite the same here too though!

just keep an eye out for agent smith!, wow what next, the thought police? from 1984, you americans really are losing your freedom, but so are us aussies, ever since the war on terror, ASIO can detain anyone they like without normal rights for upto a week, they can also raid your home without a warrant, ASIO is australia's version of the CIA.

[Edited on 12-8-2003 by octopus]

wow that is some weird stuff there. well its not long before something like that happens over here then