posted on Oct, 16 2003 @ 06:23 PM
It appears that some states are not willing to wait for the arrival of the federal Total Information Awareness system, and have elected to develope
thier own, without regard to individual freedom.
In the hit sci-fi movie "The Matrix," a clueless slacker is offered a choice: Swallow a blue pill to continue life as he knows it, or swallow a red
pill and learn the truth about a fearsome computer network secretly controlling humankind.
That's Hollywood. Here in real life, Georgia and a dozen other states have quietly chosen to join a vast computerized database purported to help
fight crime and root out terrorists. It too is called Matrix, a tortured acronym for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange.
Matrix was created by Seisint Inc., a Florida-based company, with the help of $12 million in taxpayer-funded grants from the Department of Homeland
Security and the Justice Department. Adding to its cloak-and-dagger mystique, Seisint's millionaire founder, Hank Asher, was forced to sever ties
with the company after reports surfaced that he was a former drug smuggler and government informant.
www.ajc.com...;COXnetJSessionID=1Ow72ZKnyVgAegzD6PnKQPh4WKMZ3bUcovDkNdDRHnlulubfwJ0j!806829565?urac=n&u
rvf=10663159634690.503308062485831