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. U.S. Backs Florida's New Counterterrorism Database By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Police in Florida are creating a counterterrorism database designed
to give law enforcement agencies around the country a powerful new tool
to analyze billions of records about both criminals and ordinary
Americans. Organizers said the system, dubbed Matrix, enables investigators to
find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before,
combining police records with commercially available collections of
personal information about most American adults. It would let
authorities, for instance, instantly find the name and address of every
brown-haired owner of a red Ford pickup truck in a 20-mile radius of a
suspicious event. The state-level program, aided by federal funding, is poised to
expand across the nation at a time when Congress has been sharply
critical of similar data-driven systems on the federal level, such as a
Pentagon plan for global surveillance and an air-passenger-screening
system. The Florida system is another example of the ongoing post-Sept. 11
debate about the proper balance between national security and individual
privacy. Yesterday the District and the Department of Homeland Security
announced plans to launch a pilot law enforcement data-sharing network
that will include Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. Paul S. Cameron, president of Seisint Inc., the Boca Raton, Fla.,
company that developed the Matrix system and donated it to the state,
said: "It is exactly how law enforcement worked yesterday, except
it's extraordinarily faster. In this age of risks that appear
immediately, you have to be able to respond immediately." Some civil liberties groups fear Matrix will dramatically lower the
threshold for government snooping because other systems don't allow
searches of criminal and commercial records with such ease or speed. "It's going to make fishing expeditions so much more
convenient," said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center
for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that monitors privacy issues.
"There's going to be a push to use it for many different kinds of
purposes." The Justice Department has provided $4 million to expand the Matrix
program nationally and will provide the computer network for information
sharing among the states, according to documents and interviews. The
Department of Homeland Security has pledged $8 million, state officials
said. At least 135 police agencies in the state have signed up for the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement database service, which began
operation more than a year ago. At least a dozen states -- including
Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan -- said they want to add their
records. In some ways, Matrix resembles other data-driven counterterrorism
initiatives started since the 2001 attacks. The Pentagon's controversial
Terrorism Information Awareness program also sought to use personal data
in new ways, but on a far larger scale. The idea, started by retired
admiral John Poindexter, was to create a global data-surveillance system
that might find subtle signs of imminent threats. Lawmakers sharply
limited the program's funding several months ago, and now some intend to
shut it down. A Justice Department document from early this year describes Matrix
as an effort "to increase and enhance the exchange of sensitive
terrorism and other criminal activity information between local, state
and federal law enforcement agencies." Matrix organizers met
several times with Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), while he was head of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, to discuss the system's development. Matrix is short for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange.
The name was chosen somewhat whimsically by a Florida law enforcement
officer, an agency official said. Florida officials say the system will
be used only by authorized investigators under tight supervision. They
said it includes information that has always been available to
investigators but brings it together and enables police to access it
with extraordinary speed. Technical challenges include ensuring that data are accurate and that
the system can be updated frequently. "The power of this technology -- to take seemingly isolated bits
of data and tie them together to get a clear picture in seconds -- is
vital to strengthening our domestic security," said James
"Tim" Moore, who was commissioner of the Florida Department of
Law Enforcement until last month. A senior official overseeing the project acknowledged it could be
intrusive and pledged to use it with restraint. "It's scary. It
could be abused. I mean, I can call up everything about you, your
pictures and pictures of your neighbors," said Phil Ramer, special
agent in charge of statewide intelligence. "Our biggest problem now
is everybody who hears about it wants it." The Matrix project began soon after the 2001 attacks. Seisint founder
Hank Asher, a wealthy data entrepreneur, called Florida police and
claimed he could pinpoint the hijackers and others who might pose a risk
of terrorist activity. "Asher says, 'I'll develop this for free,'
" Ramer said. Working without a contract or pay, Asher set about creating the
system in Florida, Ramer said. "We showed it to the other states,
and the other states went nuts." They came up with an idea of a
search engine called "Who" that would be at the core of the
"concept as a national intelligence project," he said. Ramer added that he's never seen so powerful a system in his many
years in law enforcement. To replicate it "we'd have to go to
10,000 systems," he said. "It would just take you
forever." In 1999, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI suspended
information service contracts with an earlier Asher-run company because
of concerns about his past, according to law enforcement sources. The
Chicago Tribune reported in 1987 that court documents in a federal drug
case said defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who identified Asher as a pilot
and onetime smuggler, offered him as an informant. Jennie Khoen, a spokeswoman for the Florida department, said
yesterday that the agency knew about Asher's "history with drug
smuggling," including his work as an informant. Moore said his
department "knew about Mr. Asher's past." "We were aware of his informant activity," Moore said.
"But we were also aware he had never been arrested or
charged." Because of the renewed questions about his past and because the state
is entering into a contract for the Matrix services, Khoen said "it
is prudent and responsible for us to do a comprehensive review of his
background." The Florida legislature just allocated $1.6 million to begin paying
Seisint for its work. Asher didn't respond to several requests for interviews. Seisint's Cameron said people should focus on the value of the
technology for fighting terrorism and crime. He said privacy fears are
overblown because Matrix relies on the same records that police have
always had access to. Asher has also donated services to the FBI, the Secret Service and
other agencies. And authorities credit Seisint with helping to turn up
links among the hijackers who slammed planes into the Pentagon and the
World Trade Center, and to some of their associates. The Secret Service, the FBI, and the Immigration and Naturalization
Service gave Asher letters of commendation last year. They are
prominently displayed as awards on Seisint's Web site. Spokesmen at the
FBI and the Secret Service said the letters are routinely given as
thank-you notes to hotels and other companies that help their agencies. Former Secret Service head Brian Stafford recently went to work as a
senior executive at Seisint. © 2003 The Washington Post Company
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