Florida's Version Of TIA May Spread To Other States

Annoying Cowwart writes "Looks like TIA is coming back, this time through the by-the States-but-all-together backdoor. Now called M.A.T.R.I.X. ('Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange'). See the Washington Post article for details. I wonder: do they have to try hard to find such apt names for their projects or does it come naturally? (For German speakers, there is another article about this in Der Spiegel.)"

Comments

Re:Heh..

[kmak]

And whatever happened to privacy? Sure, it's for the law enforcement people, but err.. what if it falls into the wrong hands?

Re:M.A.T.R.I.X? Try M.A.T.I.E

[TopShelf]

I've got a great example of that. There is a project currently going on that's called PULSE. Ooh, cool sounding acronym, right? Guess what it stands for?

Logistics Processes which are Uniform, Lean and supported by a common System Environment.

Of course, the guys who dreamed this up aren't native English speakers...

This systems should still have safeguards

[chrisgeleven]

I don't know the procedure to get permission to find all brown haired people that own Fords within 50 miles, but I would think there has to be some kind of safeguards to prevent random lookups without reason. For example, to look up this information the police would need to get authorization from the Chief, the Sheriff, and Judge. Combine it with fingerprints, eye scans, smart cards, whatever.

If anyone can go to a computer, type in their search criteria, and come up with that info, it will be abused. If more then 1 person has to authorize it in a way that cuts down on the chances of abuse, then I'm all for such a system.

Whimsical?

[zx75]

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.

Matrix is short for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. The name was chosen somewhat whimsically by a Florida law enforcement officer, an agency official said.

Excuse me? I would have to say that whimsically is not the correct word in this case. Considering the difference in the acronym from MATRIX, I'd have to say that it was chosen Intentionally.

Alas, it appears that the enforcement officer failed to interperet the meaning behind that name correctly. It was not meant as a message of empowerment to law-enforcement...

Re:Hm... Bush Runs FL, too

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how different people see things. Every election. I've watch the Reps are "tough on crime" and they say the Dems are weak on it. They want more surveillance, more prisons, and fewer rights for individuals (aka criminals). They are also the ones leading the charge on "lawsuit reform", but they only care about lawsuits by the common man against companies. Yet they don't care about big companies suing little companies over IP and other monopolistic things.

It just stuns me that anyone could deny this. Every election they uses the same rhetoric. Yet, if you listen to talk radio and it's followers, it's liberals who want a police state. WTF?

I guess they're still pissed they can't dump used motor oil in the stream anymore.

Re:It's all in the name

[AnotherBlackHat]

as long as the statement holds true that "it includes information that has always been available to investigators but brings it together and enables police to access it with extraordinary speed",

I wouldn't mind these things so much if a record of who accessed them and what queries they made were published in a public record.

-- this is not a .sig

Re:Scary quote

[Khomar]

pledged to use it with restraint

While that is all well and good, assuming that we can in fact trust this particular "senior official", what guarantees do we have that his successor will use the same "restraint"? How can we enforce this restraint especially in the current climate where all restraints regarding privacy and liberty seem to be expendable in the interests of national security?

Overreactions

[mr_luc]

I know that everyone is scared about the TIA initiative, and we all pretty much agree that it's a bad thing. But please RTFA, and think about this a little bit:

They are using information that has ALWAYS been available to Law Enforcement. Now, granted, the question we all ask is "How do we know that it will be restricted to use by Law Enforcement?" and "How do we know it won't be abused?", but really, you don't -- and you never did. People always abuse systems, and sometimes they get caught and sometimes they don't, but this particular initiative is not inherently evil.

It is just technology, and to combat it is Luddite.

Hell, this system could be enormously beneficial, especially if it lets citizens check what info the system has on them! You know how hard it is to track down black marks and shit on your record right now? The paperwork is insane. This system brings it all together.

It's just technology. The technology is inevitable. What people should be concerned with is, not trying to cripple or deny funding to these initiatives. They are truly inevitable. Instead, embrace them and try to make sure that the RIGHT laws get passed.

I think that as long as laws are passed -- ironclad laws -- that specify EXACTLY who can use this system and when, everything will be ok. Really, if it is restricted to traditional Law Enforcement agencies (within the state), I don't see a problem. Now when they start tracking our travel and our purchases, like TIA wanted, I worry. But stuff like what car you drive (DMV), your picture (driver's license, DMV), where you live (anywhere), your criminal history (same ol' same ol') -- none of this is new, and it's not particularly sinister. In fact, it kicks ass.

Re:Overreactions

[Efreet]

I agree with you in principle, but I think we need alot more than just laws to make sure that abuse is prevented. After all, its the very poeple charged with enforcing the laws that we are in danger from. What we need is either some sort of watchdog orginization charged specifically with preventing abuses of this power, or (better yet) some sort of mutual transparency that lets *the general public* monitor how the police use this power.

Re:Whoa....

[jazman_777]

And what about when you may actually have a reason to organise a rebellion because your government has turned your country into a police state the KGB would envy?

I am an American, I can't help but bark out: this is the land of the free, the home of the brave! United we stand! These colors don't run! America: love it or leave it! Blah blah blah.

Fact is, secession was an accepted option, until Lincoln crushed it out of existence. After all, we seceded from the British Empire.

Re:Why I'm just waiting for The One

[isaac]

I won't join the ACLU because they seem rather keen on taking away my freedoms, such as the freedoms of my children to practice their religion in public places.

Sorry? Anyone can practice their religion in public places to the extent that they do not coerce others into their religious practice. Every public school I went to had religious clubs and bible study groups.

I only objected once, in middle school, when attendence at bible study was effectively mandatory. There was a Baptist preacher who came in every morning to "share the good news" by preaching in the auditorium where students who took the bus were forced to wait for classes to begin. He even singled out non-christian students like myself (I guess the name "Isaac" was a dead giveaway) and called on other students to "help" me "accept Jesus Christ into [my] heart." Maybe you consider that acceptable religious practice; iIfound it coercive. I don't object to proselytizing unless I'm being forced by the state to listen to it (remember this was a public school). I didn't sue, but you'd better believe that my parents complained to the school administration. After that, the bible study was made optional and moved to a separate room - everybody was happy.

Just my 2c, but I think your concerns about your children's religious freedoms being "taken away" are overblown, absent any specific example.

-Isaac

Possible sources

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a quick list of possible sources for data:

1. DMV
2. Credit Agencies
3. Phone Bill
4. Library Records (My university actually has an online lookup of what you have checkedout in the past....)
5. Why not feed data to it from Carnivore or Echelon

Also I rememebr that nowadays most new cellphones keep precise track of the users location! So if the system were tottally abused, they could Have picture of you, Everyone you have ever spoken with, everything you have read, and even your current location.

Scary...

No. This is actually a tactic.

[Fantastic Lad]

Calling this thing MATRIX *DOES* show a particular level of incompetence behind it.

No it doesn't, I'm afraid. I wish it did, but this is in fact quite deliberate.

By seeing something as overt as this but letting it go, the public is subconsciously, (and not even very subconsciously at that), chosing to accept subserviance. The level of overt control is raised slowly, and the public lets it go at each level, until they have attained a completly defeated slave mentality.

The aim of the current war being waged by government against Americans is not to overtly defeat the populace. It's to lead the populace into a state of self-defeat.

That's how it works. --If they push too far with one attack, (Like this MATRIX shit), and the people start getting rowdy, then they'll immediately pull back and say, "Sorry, Sorry. Didn't mean it, we won't do it. --Well, except for maybe these little parts here and here." And then they'll try again in two weeks with something else. You cannot get them to stop, and you will not be able to find a rational agreement through legislation, because the enemy is not seeking balance; it is seeking total domination and it will not stop pushing and pecking until it has achieved its ends. The public, though dull-witted, is for the most part 'good and reasonable' which means that it will continue to act in good faith. Psychopaths, like Bush are not human and so they will never act in good faith. It's like a diode. The current goes in one direction only. You don't play cards with psychos.

There are exactly three responses one can take to this kind of tactic:

1. Haul the heads of government out of their offices and hang them all for high treason.

2. Get out of the U.S. before they haul you out of *your* office and send you to a camp. (Here's another with site with some photos, --one including a shot of a placard with a date stamp, reading "Jun 00", presumably indicating a construction date shortly after Shrub's election. This particular set of photos is of an un-manned camp, hence the ability to take photos).

3. Sit on your ass and try to pretend that everything will work out okay until it's too late. See, "Why I did not leave Nazi Germany in Time".

So of those three. . , which are you going to do?

-FL

M.A.T.R.I.X.

[Master Controll Prog]

M.A.T.R.I.X. ('Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange'). where is the fucking R?

WARNING: false positives swamp genuine hits in TIA

[stridebird]

As it was explained to me recently, the problem with a TIA system is the problem of false positives....let's say:

population : 250,000,000

TIA is 99% likely to match a "bad guy"

lets assume there are 1000 bad guys in the population (ok lets say "really really bad guys" then)

the system finds 99%of them : 990 positive profiles

But let's say the TIA is 0.1% likely to falsely finger someone:

the system produces 250,000 false positives...

So now you have 990 + 250,000 = 250,990 profiles to examine and in fact, only 0.25% of them are geniuine. The rest get their doors kicked in after midnight as the suede-denim secret police blithely take the algorithm to its logical conclusion.

Be afraid, be very afraid.