Do you have concerns about the growing database called MATRIX, a federally-funded program that walks, talks and quacks like TIA, the DARPA system that was supposedly de-activated last year? Today on the radio, I heard a program about this "under-reported" story. The best links found are below, with more added in the file link on this controversial and very dangerous project that works so very well with the Patriot Acts.

Documents Acquired By ACLU Prove That MATRIX is a Data Mining Program (01/21/2004)

NEW YORK--New documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union prove that data mining is at the heart of the controversial MATRIX police database system and reveal that the federal authorities have been deeply involved in developing the state-run effort to spy on citizens.

NPR's Larry Abramson reports on a system that allows a number of states to share their criminal databases, and link it with other public information. The Matrix system has drawn criticism from privacy advocates, who say it's just like the Pentagon's controversial and discontinued Total Information Awareness project.

Data Debase

The powerful technology known as data mining -- and how, in the government's hands, it could become a civil libertarian's nightmare.

To provide good access to a variety of organizations and sites that have webpages on this topic, I will be posting a link to a text-only file with more complete information than should be copied straight into abuzz posts.

If you are unfamiliar with the MATRIX (and I do not mean the cool movie series), please take a gander at the three links provided in the opening of this blog entry. This is truly an "under-reported" story, as many have characterized it.

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The following is a 48k text file with portions of a number of webpages and articles. Download, copy and read at your leisure. Powerful stuff! Note also that the International Conference of SIAM is coming up in April. SIAM is an organization that leads the world in data mining, a "new" technology that is changing our world.
http://www.sharemation.com/cobalt123/MATRIXfilesTIA.txt

Quick points: The Matrix database does not allow for corrections of inaccurate data. Think about all the errors in credit reports and now multiply this by millions of entries that exceed by far reporting data only from the financial histories of people.

At present, if a law enforcement staff types merely a name, the return will be complete life history of recorded documentation from birth to immunizations and job history, degrees, assets,tax records, even fingerprints if ever recorded. There is not intent to modify or change "information" retrieved. This is potential for enormous invasions of privacy legal now under Patriot Act that does not require a reason other than "Possible terrorism activities".

Think about the damage and the intrusions possible. Pretty easy to add folks to the No Fly lists, like the reporter who commented "Bush is dumb", was quoted in a memo, and now is restricted from all flight unless cleared each trip by DARPA.

This is a very sophistacated version of Big Brother, in which information collection is decentralized to the point that now one will know who "contributed" information. Much more efficient than days in East Germany when the government relied on half the citizens to inform on all.

The other key issue is "data mining": this applied mathmatics and technology allows "profiling" to determine many things, such as "risk" for a person to potentially commit a crime. Remember the Tom Cruise movie last year, "The Minority Report"? People could be arrested for a crime that it was predicted they might commit. People WILL BE monitored and worse for specious reasons.

Data mining is an amazing field of study. Look at the file link for more explanation. Truly a "booming" field, and quite international. I looked at the list of International Conference 2004 program members, and read their affiliations with universities and with corporations. Whoa Nelly!

A quick note to friends clicking this way: cobalt here was elected a delegate to her county convention in the Iowa Caucus tonight! I stood for John Edwards, and what a wonder, he was the third winner in my own precinct, and the vote was so very tight. 70 - 70 - 66 for Dean, Kerry and Edwards!

I went over to draw the "non-viable" voters for Clark and Kucinich towards Edwards, and our group won two delegates with a rise from the original 32 of us to 66 in final tally! This is indeed another time that one person can make a difference. While I still believe Dean will make it to the final Election 2004, all the country and the media must now re-think what were considered slamdunks and assumed strategies and platforms.

For more on the results of the Iowa Caucus tonight, read Jay Bullock's post in Open Source Politics within the United States section.

http://www.ospolitics.org/usa/

Jay Bullock:
http://www.ospolitics.org/usa/archives/2004/01/20/boston_bou.php#more

Power to the little people whose voices were heard from tiny Iowa to the rest of the country. It is Time to Take Back America from the Bushies and big-money corporations! Populists and Progressives rock!

Did you hear the one about appointing a well-known bigot and conservative right champion as a judge? Pickering gets to be a lame duck of sorts, unfortunately this story is totally lame. Let's just hope he somehow is deterred before he has a chance to rule on anything of consequence.

From the NYTimes today, here is an excerpt of the story:

Bypassing Congress, Bush Installs Judge on Federal Appeals Court
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an election-year slap at filibustering Democrats, President Bush sidestepped Congress on Friday and installed Mississippi judge Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court after a two-year battle filled with racial, religious and regional argument.

Bush elevated Pickering by recess appointment, simply putting him in office while Congress was out of session. Such appointments, bypassing confirmation, are valid until the next Congress takes office, in this case in January 2005.

Bush's action will re-ignite the battle between Republicans and Democrats over the direction of the federal courts, a fight already sure to be intense this year because of the presidential election.

If not confirmed by the Senate before the end of the year, Pickering would probably retire, supporters suggested.

Pickering, a 66-year-old federal trial judge whom Bush nominated for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, has been waiting for two years for confirmation. But Democrats have repeatedly blocked Republican efforts to bring the nomination to a vote in the Senate.

``I'm grateful to the president for his continued confidence and support,'' Pickering told The Associated Press from his home in Mississippi. ``I look forward to serving on the 5th Circuit.''

He was being sworn in in Jackson, Miss., Friday night.

Democrats have accused Pickering of supporting segregation as a young man, and promoting anti-abortion and anti-voting rights views as a state lawmaker.

The Democrats can be expected to use the appointment to try and paint Bush as insensitive to minorities during the election campaign.

``The president's recess appointment of this anti-civil rights judge the day after laying a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King is an insult to Dr. King, an insult to every African-American, and an insult to all Americans who share Dr. King's great goals,'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. ``It serves only to emphasize again this administration's shameful opposition to civil rights.''

And then there is the idiotic plan to promote marriage for the low, low price of $1.5 Billion, and the plans to revamp the US citizenship test. The "Guest Workers" policies are changing, and the environmentalists are gagging on the rapid-fire destruction of protections for health, land, animals, safety. This is just snowballing in an unbelievable avalanche of Conservative political ill will.