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]
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