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Summary:
This report provides an overview of the Multi-State Anti-Terrorism Information
Exchange (MATRIX) pilot project, which leverages advanced computer/information
management capabilities to more quickly access, share, and analyze public records
to help law enforcement generate leads, expedite investigations, and possibly prevent
terrorist attacks. The pilot project is intended to demonstrate the effective use of
such capabilities, but it is less clear whether the project has been designed to prevent
unnecessary intrusions on privacy.
The MATRIX pilot project is being administered by the Institute for
Intergovernmental Research for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Project security and access to the MATRIX system is managed by the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement. The project is being funded by the DHS Office of
Domestic Preparedness ($8 million) and the Department of Justice's Bureau of
Justice Assistance ($4 million).
Privacy advocates, civil libertarians, and others oppose MATRIX and similar
systems for fear that unrestricted data mining could lead to a massive invasion of
privacy, as such systems could enable governments to scrutinize the lives and
activities of ordinary citizens. Advocates for the MATRIX pilot project counter that
this system allows authorized investigators to share and analyze information that is
already available to law enforcement from public and state-owned data, without a
subpoena or court order. They contend that, with MATRIX, limited investigative
information can be developed to generate potential leads within seconds, as opposed
to taking days or weeks to manually track and acquire the same information.
The 9/11 Commission did not address the issue of data mining of public or
private sector data for the purposes of fighting terrorism, but the commission
expressed concern about data sharing between government agencies and the private
sector. To protect the privacy of individuals, the commission called for the President
to promulgate guidelines to govern information sharing, and establish a board to
oversee adherence to those guidelines.
It remains uncertain whether the MATRIX pilot project is currently designed to
assess and address privacy and civil liberty concerns. If not, it might be possible that
the pilot project could be redesigned to provide an empirical framework to evaluate
the use of such data in the future and to minimize unwarranted intrusions on privacy.
It has been suggested that, unless a consensus were found regarding the use of public
and private sector data for the purposes of national security and counterterrorism, the
unregulated use of such data could lead to abuses and unnecessary encroachments on
privacy. Perhaps equally as important, a lack of consensus could lead to public
rejection and subsequent loss of what many believe to be one of the greatest
advantages available to the United States to prevent future terrorist attacks -
advanced computing capabilities. This report will be updated as needed.
