’Matrix’ Counterterrorism Database Debuts in Florida

U.S. Backs Florida’s New Counterterrorism Database
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’Matrix’ Offers Law Agencies Faster Access to
Americans’ Personal Records

By Robert O’Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 6, 2003; Page A01
washingtonpost.com

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
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21872-2003Aug5.html