BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID


Don't be fooled into thinking you are safe now that our Beltway Boys cut the funding for the TIA Act. I think the only reason the neo-cons let it go was they set up this little private company to do the the same thing.

Jim Krane reports from the AP:

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 US 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.

This is the real Matrix kids, this is not a game. For those of you who only come here for the gossip, this is the one time I urge you to click on the link. Anyone could be on this list, it's a back door into the TIA without any government/citizen oversight because it's a private business and since the technology is so new, it's probably completely unregulated.

It's been a long time since I read the book, but it sure sounds like 1984 to me. Take note of the closing paragraphs. This is the last word today.

Aspects of the project appear designed to steer around federal laws that bar the US 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. Florida officials have acknowledged that users of Matrix, which stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, can "monitor innocent citizens."

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