Hate by privacy advocates, database search engine lives on

Posted on Sun, Jul. 10, 2005

Hate by privacy advocates, database search engine lives on

DAVID ROYSE
Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - When the federal government in April stopped funding a database that lets police quickly see public records and commercially collected information on Americans, privacy advocates celebrated what they saw as a victory against overzealousness in the fight against terrorism.

But a few states are pressing forward with a similar system, continuing to look for ways to quickly search through a trove of data - from driver's license photos to phone numbers to information about people's cars. Their argument in seeking to keep the Matrix database alive in some form: it's too important for solving crimes to give up on.
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But law officers bent on keeping the Matrix alive say the information is already out there anyway for companies to use for less noble purposes. Law enforcement has always used such information; it just never had a big computer search tool to quickly find links between people and places.
(snip)

Together, the program would give states a powerful tool that could link someone to several addresses or vehicles, and possibly to other people who lived at those same houses or drove the same car.
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