Controversial terror database Matrix shuts down

A three-year-old crime and terrorism database that came under fire for sharing and collecting personal information was closing down Friday because a federal grant ran out. Elements of the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange -- Matrix -- may live on if individual states decide to fund it on their own, said Bob Cummings, executive vice president for the Institute for Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, which helped coordinate the Matrix network. "We're winding up the project today. The system that the federal government has basically paid for, the application itself to the users and the states, will either be assumed by the states or will no longer exist," he said. Matrix was down to four participants -- Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Connecticut -- after several states opted out due to privacy concerns, legal issues or cost. It operated with grant money from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, but that funding expired Friday. "They can put a good face on it, saying that the grant ran out, but frankly if there wasn't growing opposition to this kind of intrusive, investigatory technique, the funding wouldn't have run out," said Howard Simon, executive director for the Florida American Civil Liberties Union. [more]