MATRIX idea may be alive in Utah

By Bob Mims
The Salt Lake Tribune
June 18, 2004


Gov. Olene Walker's recent order withdrawing Utah from the crime-and-terror
MATRIX information network will not be the final word on state involvement in such future databases.

    On Thursday, Utah Technology Commission members found themselves agreeing with Ed McConkie, executive director of the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, that eventual participation in something like MATRIX may be inevitable.

    "Even though Utah pulled out of MATRIX, there are other ''matrixes' out there, other information-sharing systems that Utah will explore," McConkie testified. "This is the opportune time and a necessary issue."

    McConkie and several commission members also agreed an overhaul of Utah's Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA) may be in order to address privacy issues raised by advances in technology.

    Walker officially ended Utah's membership in the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX) on March 26 after a special committee completed its review. The panel recommended Utah not be involved in MATRIX "until adequate oversight and appropriate privacy safeguards" for public and private citizen records gathered by the program could be guaranteed.

    In pulling out of the pilot crime-fighting network, Walker also endorsed the committee's recommendation that the Legislature review privacy and oversight issues related to MATRIX and formulate policy to guide future involvement in such data-sharing programs.

    Utah, a prime mover in formation of MATRIX under former Gov. Mike Leavitt, was the eighth state to drop out, leaving just five of the 13 original partners.

    Created amid the furor following 9-11, MATRIX was hailed by law enforcement officials nationwide as making quickly available to authorities the kinds of information already available in separate databases -- information such as driver licenses, vehicle registrations and criminal records.

But the spectre of an Orwellian "Big Brother" database alarmed civil libertarians and foes of big government alike. They feared the prospect of billions of records being stored in one system would lead to spying on law-abiding citizens -- perhaps even profiling of people based on their ethnicity, addresses or credit histories.

    Such worries mandate tough privacy protections, but do not negate the need for an information-sharing system to help law enforcement act quickly in thwarting terrorists or hunting down criminals, said Sen. David Thomas, R-South Weber.

    "It's really a law enforcement tool," said Thomas, whose motion to have commission staffers explore database privacy issues and oversight passed unanimously. "I believe MATRIX . . . with privacy protections [could be] a good thing."

    Added Rep. David Clark, a Santa Clara Republican and co-chairman of the commission: The idea behind MATRIX "has merit and is worth pursuing. It is the implementation of it that perhaps proved its undoing."

    Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, implied some sort of participation in a centralized crime-and-terror database seemed "a classic 'Catch-22'. . . . It almost seems we're damned if we do and damned if we don't."
bmims@sltrib.com

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