Palast on Florida's "The Matrix"

[realFedUp]

(refers to a man named Hank Asher (sp?))

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/07/1427223

Thursday, August 7th, 2003
Florida Creates "the Matrix", a Big Brother-Like Surveillance System with Help From Choicepoint-Related Firm

Interview with Greg Palast on Democracy Now this morning-

A Florida law enforcement data-sharing network is about to go national. In the name of counterterrorism, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are pouring millions of dollars into the system to expand it to local law enforcement agencies across the nation. It's called Matrix, which stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. According to the Washington Post, the computer network accesses information that has always been available to investigators but brings it together and enables police to access it with extraordinary speed. Civil liberties and privacy groups say the Matrix system dramatically increases the ability of local police to snoop on individuals.

The Florida company that built the database was founded by the man behind ChoicePoint and Database Technologies. The companies administered the contract that stripped thousands of African Americans from the Florida voter roles before the 2000 election.


-continued-

[JCMach1]

1. Asher is a crook (drug dealer) -link here-

TALLAHASSEE -- A man implicated two decades ago in a Bahamian drug smuggling ring has been hired by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to help create a 13-state anti-terrorism network being launched with $4 million in Justice Department funding...

http://www.thesyndrome.com/archives/00000484.htm

[realFedUp]

2. Thanks for this link

Florida...home to swamps, crocodiles and crooks

[JoFerret]

3. If anyone understands Florida's

electoral shenanigans it's Greg Palast.