Got another choice morsel for you today: how about a master database where your driving history, name, address, neighbor names, kind of vehicle you drive, arrest record, fingerprints, photo, and any other data obtained by State agencies would be maintained for access by law enforcement personnel.
Florida, Georgia, and several other States either have it already, or are planning on implementing it soon. The AJC article today talks about it from the Georgia perspective. It would be funded by the Dept. of Homeland Defense, and maintained by a private firm under contract to the State.
Gee...what could be the problem with that? You have nothing to hide, and think of all the criminals it will help to identify and catch. It's called the "Matrix Project", like in the movie. You see, the State folks don't really care what mental links you make to the Project, otherwise they would have given it an acronym.
A corollary item concerns the lack of uniformity and access to information about inmates in City, County, State, and Federal Correctional Institutions. Here in Atlanta, if you attempt to see if your XYZ got locked up, you need to go online to at least the Atlanta City Jail, Cobb County Jail, Dekalb County Jail, State of Georgia, or the Fulton County Jail to see where they are being held. The State database shows a photo of the prisoners, but none of the others do.
And please remember, the data on these sites varies considerably, from timely, to weeks old. One would assume the databases accessible to law enforcement personnel are uniform, accurate, timely, and relevant, and they were not susceptible to an episode like in Terry Gilliam's movie with the fly. Nor would they be available to unauthorized personnel, or made available to corporate interests only peripherally related to law enforcement, nor accessible to hackers, foreign agents, identity thieves, a no-longer benevolent Government, Watergate-Style Burglars, et al.
But best of all: consider what it would take for a subject to examine their own file, have incorrect information removed, or even gain access to it. Have you ever tried to change the data about your financial transactions which are maintained by one of the three prime Credit Agencies?
Thirty years ago in Florida, the Florida Bureau of Investigation in Tallahassee could spit out a one-page printout on a subject by entering the persons drivers license number into the search engine. By now, it's probably several pages long, and with the Matrix Project, no one will be invisible to the State. Combine the speed of 64bit operating systems, with natural language query tools being developed by all the major DP companies and Doyle would not have to ask whether you ever picked your nose in Poughkeepsie...he'd know the date, time, and location.
But really, relax. You have nothing to worry about, because you are always above-board, have nothing to hide, and don't care what law enforcement agencies know about you. But if you ever happen to end up on the other side by accident or avarice, you will probably be able to handle anything that might come up.
BTW: For those who are unfamiliar with Terri Gilliam's Movie: "Brazil", here's a blurb:
"Very strange, but wonderful movie by Terry Gilliam (Monty Python) about a dark future where bureaucracy rules. It's a wildly imaginative Orwellian comedy about a future society in which a central bureaucracy regulates everything via endless air ducts, tubes and plumbing. A typographical error (well, a bug.. literally...) plunges a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) into a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy and brainwashing. DeNiro plays a heroic non-union plumber unplugging the stopped-up pipes. Academy Award Nominations: Best (Original) Screenplay, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration. As with all Gilliam films, the cinematography, setting, and effects are amazing."
posted by Richard at
Friday, October 10, 2003
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