The "MATRIX" database has had a mixed fate since it was first announced last year. "MATRIX" is short for "Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange" and like Total Information Awareness, Matrix will search not only government databases, but consumer databases as well. It is a federally-funded project that is designed for use by state and local law officials, tying together government and commercial databases from several states. One state's database that isn't in the system is Utah.

That's because the state's new governor, Olene Walker, has halted the state's participation in the database after learning that former Gov. Mike Leavitt signed the state up for it on the sly before taking his new Beltway job as EPA Administrator. According to the Deseret Morning News, Leavitt "never bothered to reveal details of the program to Utah citizens or to state lawmakers." Leavitt had thrown data on Utahns including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, property records, motor vehicle information and credit history into a database available to government agencies in eight states and managed by a private company in Florida.

As a result, Gov. Walker has halted Utah's participation in the program until she can learn more about it. ACLU has been stymied in its attempts to get the Florida government to disclose more details concerning what data MATRIX uses and how. Georgia followed up last week on a similar action taken months ago and decided to suspend participation permanently; leaving only six actively participating states in a program that boasted 13 when first announced in the national press.

But the backers of the MATRIX aren't giving up. Seisent, Inc., the company that designed the system, has representatives on a ten-state tour pushing the product to state legslatures. One selling point is the federal grant, which gets the start-up costs down to zero. But like a heroin dealer cooing that "the first one's free," after a year the federal funds disappear and the states are stuck.

Speaking of heroin, it turns out the man who founded Seisent, according to the Associated Press, "was identified by [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] FDLE informants as someone who provided police protection for [drug] smuggling operations." The man in question is one Hank Asher, who has donated more than $735,000 to political parties and candidates over the last five years. FDLE apparently finds the man just peachy, but others aren't so sure. Wired reports that Louisiana state police Deputy Superintendent Mark Oxley cited privacy and security concerns including the scope of the database and Asher's background as reasons that state pulled out.

MATRIX and other control-grid tracking programs should be worrisome for consumers concerned about the data gathered by those they do business with. Gov. Walker has appointed a panel to look into MATRIX, but state participation will ultimately be decided by the legislature, since it will cost 2-3 million dollars. But neither Walker nor the legislature should use this commission as a fig leaf to justify a decision to remain in the database. A Privacy Hero should, like Oxley, research the issue herself and make the decision.

By James Plummer

government surveillance

medical privacy

financial privacy

online privacy

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