Thirty-Three States Contributed to the MATRIX

lexbaby writes "The Salt Lake Tribune has an article claiming that at least 33 states have released government and commercial records on residents to the controversial MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) network instead of the originally claimed 13." Don't worry, there's plenty of RAM for all 50 and the territories too.

Comments

Avoiding trouble in the first place...

[ackthpt]

With this in mind, here are tips to help you avoid being labeled a terrorist:

Mouth shut, eyes forward, do what you're told. Don't question authority.

Smile for the cameras. They're everywhere and they're watching you.

Secure all zippers, buttons, tie clips, etc. Wardrobe Malfunction isn't funny anymore, it's subversive.

Turn in your neighbors on the slightest hint they're trouble makers. You won't get a pair a blue jeans, but you help keep your country safe.

Pokemon: Catch 'em all, otherwise you never know where they are or what they are up to.

Cover your mouth when coughing or sneezing to avoid Germ Warfare Terrorist label.

Vote for the most patriotic sounding politician, no matter what their platform.

Remember, we're all in this together.

Re:Avoiding trouble in the first place...

[Dalcius]

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Please board the nearest transportation to the Ministry of Love, they are waiting to see you.

Re:Avoiding trouble in the first place...

[Dalcius]

I am not trying to say that the US is in any way close to the country described in '1984', but certain people in our government have *always* pushed for some very close parallels and it's creepy whenever they surface.

I can only hope that the upcoming generation has been taught enough independence to value their freedom and fight the authoritarians. The good thing about a democratic society is that the pendulum swings both ways, and given time usually corrects itself. The current voters (baby boomers) didn't deal with as much McCarthyism as their parents and their apathy is going to get us in trouble.

Hopefully it will correct itself as it often has.

Cheers

Re:Avoiding trouble in the first place...

[ciggieposeur]

Damn, I lost my chance to moderate just to say:

"Fuck you."

Nobody is forcing you to stay in America if you don't like it. America, love it or leave it fscker.

You want to pay for my moving expenses? You want to lobby a foreign government on my behalf to grant me a visa to stay in that country?

No? Well OK then, go shut the fuck up.

There's LOTS of people forcing me to stay in America: my creditors, American politicians, foreign politicians, my parents, my wife's family, better-educated-than-American European citizens, poor foreign workers who don't want me to have one of the few jobs in their neck of the world. You Mr Anonymous Coward are a nitwitted dumbass who obviously has had no direct contract with foreign cultures if you think any old middle-class American family with a beef against the government can just pick up and leave. Shit I can't even get into Mexico to work at a sweatshop.

Let me also point out the American idea that we vote for our own government misleaders, hence the government is "by the people, for the people". When you defend a totalitarian government, you point out to the entire world that you don't know shit from squat about the idealistic American Dream, and that it's YOU who don't belong here. If you had given any clue that you knew what the hell you were talking about you might have appeared to be one of the minority of Americans who know the actual brutal history of the country and the struggle of its people to create a real democracy despite the government. But you're obviously not one of those people, so again Fuck You for being a dumbass who believes in the thin blue line and will vote for the creation of a despotism in the land *I* call home.

YOU are the non-American here, and your First Amendment right to ignorant speech ends at my property line in rural Texas. Actually not too far from the place a few ATF agents upholding a corrupt regime got their lives terminated in self-defense by some religious nuts in 1993.

Do you Mr Anonymous Coward want me to leave America? I invite you to try and kick me out. You'll need lots of bullets.

Fear Sells.

[grub]

Once this MATRIX is proven to be useless, either by failing to catch terrorists or not predicting the next attack, will the government kill the program? Of course not.

Fear has always been a great method to let government erode privacy and rights.

Re:Fear Sells.

[Chiron Taltos]

This will sound cold, but I'd take the few hundred people dead.

I don't believe we should surrender our civil liberties just because there are people out there willing to kill us. There have ALWAYS been people out there willing to kill us.

French (French & Indian War)
English (American Revolution, War of 1812)
Ourselves (U.S. Civil War)
Japanese (World War II)

Why, now, is it okay to abuse our civil liberties?

This rock keeps tigers away

[k3v0]

do you see any tigers? it must work

Re:This rock keeps tigers away

[Dalcius]

When was the last foreign terrorist attack in this country?
9/11

Before that?
Anyone?

1993?

I am NOT arguing with you, "see, we're safe" works for enough folks to keep the population apathetic. It IS creepy, though, when you think about it:
How easy would it be to walk across the Canadian border, walk into a border-town theatre, and blow yourself up?

It seems like this crap happens on a daily basis in the Middle East, but we never see this stuff.

Either they aren't out to get us as much as we think or the government has already been doing a good job.

Believe me, I understand the rammifications of a WMD attack -- looking at what certain chemicals and bioagents can do is very sobering. However I don't think the risk is high enough that the government now has a right to actively suspect (monitor) all citizens without cause.

There is a difference between monitoring a suspect and monitoring everyone. When the government is looking over everyone's shoulders, day and night, you no longer have what I would call a 'free society.'

Cheers

Re:This rock keeps tigers away

[Dalcius]

You're way of the mark.

"Oklahoma city in 1995."

Oklahoma city was not caused by foreign terrorists -- that was a local nutcase. Refer to my post, I specifically said 'foreign'. Swing and a miss.

---
"But that wasn't the last terrorist attack on this country before 9/11. Our African embassies were attacked, US troop barracks in Saudi Arabia were attacked, the USS Cole was attacked"

These are attacks off of American soil. What good is a database on American citizens going to do in helping to stop these attacks? Strike 2.

---
"and there was an attack that was stopped on New Years Eve 2000. This is not a problem that we can just ignore."

Now you're bringing up unsuccessful attacks. My whole point is that either they're not trying hard enough, or we're catching them -- which seems to be the case here.

The whole problem is that this doesn't happen nearly enough to warrant panic. We've had two local attacks in the last decade. Considering how easy the typical middle eastern attack (suicide bomber) could be carried out here, and the fact that we're not seeing any, should mean something to you. It is said (non-stop) that we're hated and threatened every day, but even the almost-unstoppable attacks aren't happening.

Strike three. Back to the bench.

In the end, the problem goes even further in that a database like this is monitoring American citizens who live here. It seems reasonable that potential terrorists can come here with all the training and money they need, spend a couple nights in a hotel, and blow themselves straight to hell. The effects of monitoring an entire population can be shrugged off by terrorists, but not those that live here.

The negatives in this case absolutely blow away the positives.

Cheers

Adding injury to insult...

[amigoro]

Billions of records: The trouble with MATRIX, said Calbrese, is the volume of data it contains, much of which was purchased unbeknown to states by Seisint Inc. Seisint is the Florida information-technology company that developed the idea for MATRIX and landed a $1.6 million contract with that state's Department of Law Enforcement to pilot it.

I am guessing Mr. Ashcroft pay this out of his own pcoket. So this tax payer's money.

Is this going to make you any safer? Doubtful.
Is this going to make you poorer? Yes, Indirectly.
Is this going to make Seisinit richer? Sure.
Is this going to violate your privacy? Most Definitely.

So you are basically paying Seisinit to take away your privacy. This is a bit like this story here. But that one is a bit more believable.

Re:Proof?

[andih8u]

I don't have to present burden of proof since I'm not the one making outlandish statements in the first place...nor am I making those statements on the front page of a "news" site and alluding to them being true.

The MATRIX

[Vexware]

Enough with the MATRIX puns, look at the issue seriously. I live in France and had never heard of this project before, but it sure looks scary, or at least, the government not saying everything about it is.

Can be read in the article: "We don't want our information floating out there when we don't know what's on the database or who has access to it," said Sen. Ron Allen, D-Stansbury Park. It seems the people actually involved in this do not know very much what information will be withheld, let alone the people whose information is withheld. I mean, how can you be sure what you're being told is the truth when you see that the people involved with the project do not know that much about it themselves?

The representatives say that the MATRIX is just a way of accessing individuals' information faster, but I don't really see how this could help them to predict where and when the next terrorist attack will be -- it will only really help them once the acts are actually done, I should think.

I'm not stating that the government are surely up to something dodgy here, and after all, perhaps they might not be lying when they say that this will allow them to get hold of currently available information faster. But I just cannot read this without an ounce of doubt that a few privacy breaches might help them to fulfill their task.

Re:Excellent

[drooling-dog]

The ones who fear these things are the ones who really have something to hide.

This is true because, as Authority Figures, our exalted leaders and police officials can be trusted completely to act diligently and with only the public interest in mind. Abuses of power for political or personal reasons are quite impossible, now and evermore. Liberals foolishly fail to understand this simple fact that every Good Dog knows.

The really cool thing about this is that they'll always be able to round up a good number of plausible suspects for anything that might happen, without all the hassle and expense of identifying the actual perpetrator or - what's worse - having to actually prove guilt. That way Ashcroft et.al. get to look like heroes whether any real justice is done or not. We the People insist on no more than that somebody be apprehended. I'd like to have a job like that. I could say, "Lookee here, Mr. Boss-Man, sir. I wrote you a hunnert lines o' code," and Mr. Boss-Man wouldn't even care if it compiled, much less did anything useful.

I dunno about you, but I didn't enjoy the Spain incident.

You're taking a big leap of faith here if you're suggesting that the liberty/safety trade-off is real. Under Hitler, Stalin and Mao, nobody was safe. Don't expect any better here if we hand absolute power to Bush and his minions (or anyone else, for that matter).

Re:Excellent

[eclectic4]

I fear a state of mind that makes living freely and happily quite cumbersome. I myself will side with the hundreds of thousands of Americans that have died protecting these rights and will accept a certain level of uncertainty pertaining to "terrorists", thank you very much...

In other words, "Live free or die". For those that may want to reconstruct this sentiment to form something like "you will die OR live free", remember what that quote means. It means, "I would rather die than to NOT live free". And I would agree. You see, I am an American, and I understand what freedom means, and therefore when I see it being eroded for unseemly ends I must, in a working democracy that is, rise up and fight. It is my duty as an American, and as a patriot.

Vote these bastards out of office... our freedom depends on it...