Grant Funding Ends for Controversial MATRIX Database
The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX), a three-year-old crime and terrorism database, was closing down Friday because a federal grant ran out. The database drew immediate criticism from privacy rights groups, including the ACLU, which argued that it provided unprecedented access to details about innocent people, including credit histories, marital history, fingerprints and Social Security numbers. Elements of MATRIX may live on if individual states decide to fund it on their own.
Controversial terror database closing down, Associated Press, April 15, 2005.
