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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.
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
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
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.
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!!!!