The Matrix
The Comedian alerts us to the Matrix:
Thousands of law enforcement bodies now use them; five states have linked their own records with a huge commercial database in a federally funded program known as Matrix.
[snip]
The next minute, he knows who your relatives are, who lives in your house, who your neighbors are, the kind of car you drive or boat you own, whether you’ve been sued and various other tidbits about your life.
Science fiction? Hardly.A growing number of police departments now have instant access via handheld wireless devices to vast commercial databases that contain details on just about anyone officers encounter on the beat.
I saw something like this in action about 3 years ago. A cop friend of mine showed me how it worked. He entered my name and it listed my relatives, address, other info, and some friends of mine (I didn’t realize one of my friends had a record until then). I was pretty shocked by it and explained to him that crap like that is why people blow up federal buildings. Well, that and craziness.
The Comedian concludes with:
How can anyone now argue against the fact that giving your name is self-incriminatory?
And isn’t tracking crap like this a violation of privacy rights protected by the fourth amendment?
June 26th, 2004 at 5:10 pm
It’s not a violation of the fourth ammendment, as they’re not searching your property or taking things without warrant. They’re collecting data from publicly available sources on you.
It is generally illegal for someone to collect information about you. Indeed, certain lines of business (credit cards for instance) would be impossible without doing this. The process of doing this isn’t the problem in and of itself, it’s the party who’s doing it: the government.
This would be better considered a violation of the _third_ ammendment (as per my last comment).
June 26th, 2004 at 5:11 pm
illegal = legal in that last comment.