WAR ON TERRORISM Crime database project released statistical list of suspects

Privacy concerns kept that analysis method out of the final system, officials say.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Before helping to launch the criminal information project known as Matrix, a database contractor gave U.S. and Florida authorities the names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists -- sparking some investigations and arrests.
The "high terrorism factor" scoring system also became a key selling point for the involvement of the database company, Seisint Inc., in the Matrix project.
Public records obtained by The Associated Press from several states show that Justice Department officials cited the scoring technology in appointing Seisint sole contractor on the federally funded, $12 million project.
Seisint and the law-enforcement officials who oversee Matrix insist that the terrorism scoring system ultimately was kept out of the project, largely because of privacy concerns.
However, new details about Seisint's development of the "terrorism quotient," including the revelation that authorities apparently acted on the list of 120,000, are renewing privacy activists' suspicions about Matrix's potential power.
"Assuming they have in fact abandoned the terrorist quotient, there's nothing that stops them from bringing it back," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, which learned about the list of 120,000 through its own records request in Utah.
The system
Matrix -- short for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange -- combines state records and data culled by Seisint to give investigators fast access to information on crime and terrorism suspects. It was launched in 2002.
Because the system includes information on people with no criminal record as well as known criminals, Matrix has drawn objections from liberal and conservative privacy groups. Utah and at least eight other states have pulled out, leaving Florida, Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The AP has received thousands of pages of Matrix documents in records requests this year, including meeting minutes and presentation materials that discuss the project in detail.
Not one indicates that Matrix planners decided against using the statistical method of determining an individual's propensity for terrorism.
When the AP specifically requested documents indicating the scoring system was scrapped, the general counsel's office for Florida state police said it could not uncover any.
Even so, people involved with Matrix pledge that the statistical method was removed from the final product.
"I'll put my 26 years of law-enforcement experience on the line. It is not in there," said Mark Zadra, chief investigator for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Availability elsewhere
He said Matrix, which has 4 billion records, merely speeds access to material that police have always been able to get from disparate sources, and does not automatically or proactively finger suspects.
Bill Shrewsbury, a Seisint executive and former federal drug agent, said the terrorism scoring algorithm that produced the list of 120,000 names was "put on the shelf" after it was demonstrated immediately after Sept. 11, 2001.
He said the scoring system requires intelligence data that was fed into the software for the initial demonstration but is not commonly available. "Nor are we interested in pursuing that," he said.
The Utah documents included a Seisint presentation saying the scoring system was developed by the company and law-enforcement officials by reverse-engineering an unnamed "Terrorist Handbook" that reveals how terrorists "penetrate and live in our society."
The scoring incorporated such factors as age, gender, ethnicity, credit history, "investigational data," information about pilot and driver licenses, and connections to "dirty" addresses known to have been used by other suspects.