Mulling over George Pope to STEVE ASHER 11 Jul 2004

Hi George...

SA> A Florida-based company, Seisint, Inc., created the database shortly
SA> after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 by combining the
SA> companyAEs own commercial databases with law enforcement records.

 GP> Shortly after, would be a fair amount of time before such was even
 GP> legal, eh? 

Apparently it was quite legal at the time, and naturally Seisint
claims to respect privacy & confidentiality of the data they recognise
their responsibility for. (As if they would say otherwise)

========================================================================
Seisint Information Policy
With the power and societal benefits that come from the products and
services we provide, also comes significant responsibility. Seisint
maintains a stringent data use policy that governs the sale and
utilization of our products. Beyond being fully compliant with federal
and state statutes, we have imposed a higher standard upon ourselves
and the customers we serve. By maintaining a greater level of privacy
protection than we are legally obligated, we prevent the potential
abuse of information.

http://www2.seisint.com/resource_center.html
========================================================================

 GP> Why was Seisint given access to law enforcement records?

The whole thing is nebulous - Seisint allows law enforcement access to 
"billions of records" through its Accurint and Securint enforcement &
background check tools. I.e. Seisint is in the business of flogging
access to law enforcement & other personal records. There is no
mention of MATRIX on Seisint's site, but another of their "products"
is interesting - Smartjury, which allows attorneys to get access to
public record info on potential jurors, to make "more informed decisions"
about who they want on their jury.

( http://www2.seisint.com/products/index.html )

While Seisint does not mention MATRIX, it is shown as a project of Institute
for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) - http://www.iir.com

MATRIX in turn is at http://www.matrix-at.org

Without going too much deeper (but see next reply), Seisint is part of a
web of interconnected public & private bodies all working with public,
law enforcement & other records.

Cheers, Steve..

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