DATABASE ON CITIZENS AN OFFENSE TO AMERICA

It's starting to sound like a civil liberties nightmare about a
totalitarian future -- except it's here now and millions of Americans are
in its crosshairs.

We're talking about Matrix, an anti-terrorism super-database that combines
reams of information -- correct or not -- on millions of people and
delivers it to authorities instantly, whether the subject is innocent or
guilty.

Set up and housed by a company called Seisint in Boca Raton, it's a
private, for-profit project. It's federally funded, guarded by state police
and appears to make an end run around laws forbidding the U.S. government
from collecting routine data on its citizens.

We warned in August that Matrix is antithetical to the very meaning of
democracy and should have been shut down.

Instead, the federal government just OK'd $12 million to expand it. Now,
1,000 more Florida law enforcement agencies have joined, in addition to 200
Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents.

Originally, 13 other states were going to participate, but six
reconsidered, some to protect citizen's rights, others because of costs.

In the trend toward privatization, many states have turned over their
public records-handling to private contractors. Now, those contractors can
charge the states hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus monthly fees, to
access their own records, and make Matrix work.

That situation alone generates questions. But more important is that
Matrix, owned by Hank Asher, a former drug smuggler turned informant, puts
millions of Americans under the potential threat of authority that can
investigate in secret and use the information for purposes of which victims
often would have no knowledge.

Beyond the threat to privacy, which undermines Fourth Amendment guarantees
against unreasonable search, the inevitable errors in records could damage
guiltless citizens.

For example, before Florida's 2000 presidential election, the state
government hired a Texas company to purge convicted felons from the polls.
But the company purged many non-felons, perhaps thousands, from the voting
rolls -- all in error.

With Matrix, authorities -- which FDLE suggests soon might include the CIA
- -- can rapidly gather a person's photo, address, former addresses, offense
record, holdings, reading habits, political leanings and more, plus
information on associates and possible relatives.

At least one danger is that use of information could be turned to personal
business. Or political purposes.

Although Matrix access is limited, that promise is only as good as the
reliability of the workers who tap into it. FDLE already fired one employee
for misusing the system. And what say do citizens have about what the
government would classify as "correct" use?

The Matrix system is an offense against the American people and Congress
must put a halt to it -- now.