Steve Quayle News Alerts

October 10, 2003
By DUANE D. STANFORD and JOEY LEDFORD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This survey is not a scientific sampling and does not reflect the opinion of the general public, but only of those who choose to participate.

Georgia officials plan to contribute confidential driver's license and auto tag information from millions of Georgians to a crime-fighting database even as five other states have backed away because of concerns about cost and personal privacy.

The detail in the data is astounding: Past addresses and telephone numbers. Neighbors' addresses and telephone numbers. The make, model and color of registered cars. Business associates. Speeding tickets. Arrests. Marriages and divorces. Names and addresses of family members. Driver's license photos. Social Security numbers and birth dates. Credit information. And all a click away.

"One-stop shopping is what it is," said Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan, who is coordinating Georgia's participation in the Matrix project. "It's extremely valuable in tracking a fugitive."

Everything in Matrix is available to state and local law enforcement from data collection services, restricted government record-sharing systems and searchable public databases, according to Georgia and Florida law enforcement officials. The power of Matrix, experts say, is that it puts all that information in one place, cross-referencing in minutes what now takes police hours or days to match.

The prospect of such an easy-to-access master file alarms privacy advocates.

"This is a battle for what kind of society we want to live in," said former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr, a former U.S. attorney who is a consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union. "Do we want to live in [George Orwell's] 1984, or do we want to live in the kind of society that America has always been?"

Access to Matrix is granted only to police for investigatory uses, Georgia and Florida law enforcement officials say. Some suggest the superpowerful system would make it easier for government authorities, from the local sheriff's department to state prosecutors, to pry into private lives.

In the wrong hands, the information could be used to take over a person's identity, giving cover to commit crimes or steal assets.

Seisint, the private company that created Matrix, not only would manage this wealth of confidential data but also would keep track of who has access to it, according to an internal e-mail within the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicle Safety. So if state governments wanted to know who had been looking at their citizens' data, Seisint would be called on to supply that information.

The record-keeping is of particular concern in Georgia, where state law lets residents request logs of individuals, agencies or businesses that have gained access to their driving record. The law makes some exceptions if the records were reviewed as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

The GBI's Keenan said ensuring Matrix is used only for legitimate purposes is a priority.

"There's a balance between privacy, which certainly everyone's interested in, and saying we don't want law enforcement to avail itself of new technology," he said.

The GBI already has provided criminal, prison and sex offender records to the database. For now, Georgia's tag and title records and its driver's license database, including fingerprints, photos and driving histories of people who have never been accused of crimes, are not included in Matrix.

Cost is one barrier. It could cost as much as $600,000 to retrieve the data and transmit them to the Matrix database, Keenan said.

Estimates in an internal Georgia Department of Motor Vehicle Safety document indicate using Matrix would cost the DMVS alone about $411,000 a year. The cost estimates do not include initial computer programming and the expense of sending driver's license photographs, which the agency plans to transmit when it switches to a digitized format.

Jim Lientz, Georgia's chief operating officer, said Wednesday that Gov. Sonny Perdue had discussed Matrix with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Perdue understood from those conversations that any costs associated with Matrix participation would be covered by federal Homeland Security funds, Lientz said.

"Frankly, if there is a cost, we will choose not to participate," Lientz said. "There has been no transfer of [motor vehicle] records at this point, and there will be no transfer until we resolve that."

But if the cost issues are resolved as Georgia wishes, the state will participate, Lientz said.

Keenan said the Department of Motor Vehicle Safety also wants assurances from Florida officials that the database is secure.

One of the challenges of managing Matrix will be to parcel out data while abiding by the patchwork of privacy laws from all the participating states, law enforcement officials said.

Access to Georgia's information in Matrix would be controlled by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the GBI's counterpart, although Seisint would track users of the system.

The database is housed at Seisint, the private company building the Matrix system. As many as 20 Seisint employees will have some access to the data, according to Florida authorities.

Seisint was founded by an admitted drug smuggler, Hank Asher, who brought the idea for Matrix to Florida officials two years ago. Asher severed his ties to Seisint in August amid questions about his past that led the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look into his background. Florida authorities also conducted background checks on other company executives and employees with direct access to data in Matrix. The agency reported finding no problems.

Asher could not be reached by the Journal-Constitution for comment despite attempts to contact him at home, through a family member and through Seisint.

Matrix stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange and was created to track terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Florida has used the database for more than a year.

Georgia and Florida are among 13 states that agreed in June to share data as part of a pilot project to expand Matrix. The federal Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are helping with a $12 million grant.

Three states -- Kentucky, Oregon and South Carolina -- have dropped out of the program, citing cost concerns. Two other states, Texas and California, showed early interest in the project but didn't sign the June agreement.

Texas opted out of Matrix, in part, because the state would have to pay $1.7 million a year to gain access to the database once the pilot project ends, said Marshall Caskey, chief of criminal law enforcement for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Georgia likely would face similar costs.

Texas officials also were concerned that the data could get into the wrong hands, Caskey said. "I don't know that I could stand up and swear that only police could access that data," he said.

Seisint is being paid $1.6 million to build Matrix. The database is housed in a secure room at the company's Boca Raton offices. Florida authorities said they regularly will test the company's security procedures and audit users of the database.

When Asher resigned, he placed his company stock in a blind trust and has no access to Matrix or its data, Florida officials said.

According to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Asher admitted to smuggling drugs in 1982 but refused to elaborate. Agents developed "corroborating information" that "during 1981 and 1982, Asher piloted five to seven plane loads of cocaine from Colombia to the United States," the report stated.

Asher told investigators "he had shown a lack of judgment during that period," according to the FDLE report. Asher was not charged with a crime and cooperated with federal investigators, the report stated.

Afterward, Florida law enforcement officials sent a letter to Gov. Bush saying they were confident Seisint and its database were secure.

Christopher Slobogin, a University of Florida law professor and privacy advocate, noted that Matrix is remarkably similar to the much-maligned Total Information Awareness Program proposed by the Justice Department and killed by Congress last month.

Congressional critics charged the federal program's intensive surveillance threatened privacy and civil liberties.

"Within a short period of time, we have something that could do the same thing" and would be controlled by the states instead of the federal government, Slobogin said. "You get the idea it could be some kind of end run around Congress.

"I think a sizable number of people would feel uncomfortable about this," he said.

Phil Ramer, who runs the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's intelligence office, said Matrix streamlines time-consuming police work.

For example, presume that police have a witness who saw a man in a brown Ford F-150 truck grab a child in Marietta. The witness can recall only a partial license plate number. Police investigators could ask Matrix for all convicted pedophiles who live in Cobb County and own such a truck. A list of possible suspects would come back within minutes.

At present, such cross-referencing could take hours, days or weeks.

"That's why a lot of these leads don't get run -- because people just don't have the physical time to do them," Ramer said.

At the same time, the director of Georgia's driver's license agency questioned the wisdom of providing confidential data to a private company. In a Sept. 2 e-mail to then-interim Department of Motor Vehicle Safety Commissioner Neal Childers, Ronny Johnson told his boss he was "concerned about the legality" of giving driver's records "to a non-government entity."

Johnson did not respond to several requests by the Journal-Constitution for comment.

Childers, who left the department to become general counsel for the state Department of Community Health, said he was in favor of sending driver's license and tag files to the Matrix project. He noted that Georgia's driver's license database had been managed for years by a private contractor, although the equipment is housed on state property.

Georgia Motor Vehicle Department spokeswoman Susan Sports said the agency is evaluating joining the Matrix project.

Database editor David A. Milliron and news researcher Joni Zeccola contributed to this article.

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