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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.
there are numbers but not a list!
we need a list! if my state was involved I would like to know!
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
With the Mormons keeping track of their ancestors and all, do you suppose that some (most?) of the info that Utah willingly provided was from those vast genealogical records?
I wonder if/how that would help the MATRIX project. Hmm.
Aksearch.net is a db I compiled from a few various databases the State of Alaska makes available. I have address and phone numbers for approx 98% of residents of Alaska. I also have DOB for about 5%, and voting records of all eligable voters. All available for free. Scarry huh?
I was recently stopped by the cops (while walking) here in FL. I was stopped for crossing the street with an open container of beer on the way to my neighbor's house.
Anyway, what was spooky about it is they were able to immediately look up my record--I got busted smoking pot at a concert about 10 years ago in NJ--literally a thousand miles away. Even though this was expunged from my record nearly ten years ago, they found out about it from their cars, without me every mentioning that I ever lived anywhere other than FL. That sucks.
I don't know if it's on the web, but there was a wonderful series of Pogo (by Walt Kelly) strips from the early 70's where Spiro Agnew (then Vice President) was portrayed (appropriately) as a hyena in military uniform. For the good of the country all suspect people were rounded up and jailed. The end result was everyone in jail except him, including his cronies and assistants.
Sounds like history repeating itself.
Spiro Agnew later resigned due to mounting pressure over scandal for tax evasion and bribe taking.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
....developped and running al the way till the late 80's, but a dude called Gorbachov kinda screwed it all up....(it's still in use only in outdated machines in China.)
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
IIRC, McCarthy's quest began by seeking special treatment by the U.S. Army for Pvt G. David Schine, a former aide to Roy Cohn, friend and ally of McCarthy. McCarthy's list ("I have in my hand a list...") was BS, but once the lying for favoritism got going it was hard to stop and took on a life of it's own, alledging the Army was full of communist sympathisers because they refused special treatment to Schine. Pretty ugly, but today isn't quite that bad, yet.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
TARKIN:
The regional governors now have direct control over territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this MATRIX.
CT
it is only a matter of time before this is used to round up non terrorist criminals to make some politician look good. that is essentialy what this kind of information is best for. no terrorist is going to show up with the kind of info they are putting together. there is no way some this will not be used against the peaceful criminals in this country. its a damn shame.
this is not a Sig.
Hypothetically, though, what happens if it does contribute to blocking a terrorist attack?
Would you change your mind about it?
Would you rather have a few hundred people dead or have a little information stored about you in a database?
Just playing devil's advocate here.
Well that's the wonderful thing about incredible amounts of data mining software and huge databases. You can make it that bad at much faster rate. Entire periods of historical precendent collapse under a compressed timeline. A single President can implement a police state and revoke 100 years of case law regarding privacy with a single sweep of the mouse, all in one term.
As it turns out, I actually know the person who prototyped the MATRIX system very well -- it's my wife's aunt.
On one hand, this scares me a bit, because I know her work, and she's good -- which means that this system probably functions as intended.
On the other hand, I have the assurances that a) she's a decent person, who generally supports civil liberties and frowns on abuse of government powers; and b) she's explicitly said that there were several requests that the government made during the initial design phase that she explicitly ruled out -- she told the government they were going too far, and that she wouldn't be a part of what they wanted. They actually backed off, too from what I've been told.
Of course, I realize that I have very little credibility here as just another Slashdot poster...but for anyone inclined to believe, the good news is that *some* restraint was made in designing the MATRIX system.
How To Get Humans To Mars
Newspeak: the one and only language whose vocabulary decreases every year.
"You must not just obey Big Brother, you must love Big Brother"
"We are aiming at destroying the family unit. All love will be directed towards Big Brother"
"Procreation will be nothing more than an annual ritual"
Again, all from 1984
I was reading James Mitchner's Iberia up to a couple months ago. It's terribly ironic considering what happened in Spain on the 11th and the political climate in the USA. The book was written, IIRC, in the late 60's and one spaniard told Mitchner, refering to the harsh governance of Franco, that the spaniards need a firm hand because (pardon if quote is not exact) "We're such bastards to govern."
I consider this phrase frequently when reading about autocratic or strong central governments and people apparently happy to be lead thusly. It's worrying.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Imagine public records being accessable to the Public!?!
First the tinfoilers and whiners were bitching about crazy government secrets. We want access to all the information the government has!!!!! So they pass the Freedom of Information Act. Now everyone has access to all the information the government has. Now the cry is "We want privacy!!".
Meh, who gives a fuck.. All these idiots and their nazi germany references obviously have never read a history book, or hell, even seen any good WWII movies.
The government has ALWAYS had my address, phone and social security number (i mean for fuckes sakes, they issue that)
Cops have always had access to my arrest record via NIBRS, UCR.. Vehicle data through VINES, MILES, and other networks. So now they need "one resource to bind them all". One network to crash and become unusable, and believe me, the others I mentioned go up and down ALL the time.
The only thing that bothers me about this is they payed all that cash for a redundant system that no doubt wont work all that well.
The criminal data, for instance, where does it come from? From the court system, or perhaps from NIBRS, and even then only after the agencies send in their monthly submissions. It wont be updated on-the-fly. How do I know this? Because I would have had to write an interface to the system by now if it was any difference.
Anyhow, who cares, more paranoia and handwaving from michael.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I love the America that you represent. Currently we are a minority in our own country. I hope the pendulum does swing back soon, because moving to europe is gonna be a pain. ;-)
h p and know that some of us are awake and give a sh*t.
Please read this: http://holophrastic.com/javascopes/september_02.p
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Weapons of Mass (Political) Destruction for Bush, Rumsfeld and their cronies: Records pretaining to the US assistance in Iraq's chemical warfare programs in the 1980's for use against Iran (who we really didn't like at the time and still aren't too fond of).
The present Administration is interested in sweeping under the rug the support we gave to bin Laden and the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the same timeframe as well.
Expect one of the following as the election approaches:
It wasn't just the open border policy. What was more important was US government intervention in other countries' affairs. I mean, the CIA don't exactly twiddle their thumbs all day! In one of the Dalai Lama's books, he mentions that the CIA were involved in his run to India, and that was decades ago on the other side of the world in the Himalayan mountains in Tibet, ferchrissakes! Can you imagine what the CIA are like now? What amazes and scares me the most is that today people have stopped demanding to know why and just accept the fact that it happened because those "middle easterners are evil terrorists". But WHY? WHAT ARE THEY DYING FOR? All I ever hear is that "those godless savages and fundamentalists hate freedom, that's all". C'mon people, keep questioning!!! 3000 people dead. What is going on behind our backs?