USA 1984

Democracy Now: Florida Creates "the Matrix",
a Big Brother-Like Surveillance System with Help From Choicepoint-Related Firm

Remember the Florida election of 2000 when a private database company
scrubbed thousands of eligible voters from the rolls? Well now one of the
co-founders of Database Technologies is back in the headlines -- he's
working with law enforcement agents in Florida to create what may soon
expand into a national surveillance system. We talk with privacy expert
Wayne Madsen, investigative reporter Greg Palast and a top intelligence
official from the state of Florida. [Includes transcript]

A Florida law enforcement data-sharing network is about to go national. In
the name of counterterrorism, the Departments of Justice and Homeland
Security are pouring millions of dollars into the system to expand it to
local law enforcement agencies across the nation. It's called Matrix, which
stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. According to the
Washington Post, the computer network accesses information that has always
been available to investigators but brings it together and enables police
to access it with extraordinary speed. Civil liberties and privacy groups
say the Matrix system dramatically increases the ability of local police to
snoop on individuals.