Why We Should Fear The Matrix: The government proposed Total Information Awareness (TIA) and privacy advocates flipped their lids. TIA was an attempt to catalog scads of information about…well, everyone, in order to “prevent terrorism.” Now that TIA is dead, MATRIX has popped up.
“Congress should be applauded for shutting TIA down. First, Congress banned the use of TIA against American citizens, in light of privacy concerns, as well as concerns about the potential for erroneous identifications of innocent persons as terrorists. The program was then renamed Terrorist Information Awareness. Then, Congress shut down that program as well. […]The Matrix is run by a private corporation — Seisint Inc. of Boca Raton, Florida — on behalf of a cooperative group of state governments. However, it is, at least in part, federally funded — and may, in future, allow federal access.
The program has received $4 million from the Justice Department. It has been promised a further $8 million from the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, news reports indicate that Matrix officials have said they are considering giving access to the CIA.”
