»"Matrix" (in the USA? you're probably in it)«

As reported on winxpnews.com...

Quote:

Welcome to the MATRIX In the motion picture The Matrix, Morpheus asks and answers: "What is the Matrix? Control." Civil libertarians are afraid that's exactly the problem with the counterterrorism database program that has been dubbed (perhaps unfortunately) "MATRIX," which in this case stands for "Multistate Anti-TeRrorism Information eXchange." The data mining system, funded to the tune 8 million dollars by the federal government, combines government databases with about 20 billion commercial records to greatly enhance the speed and widen the scope of terrorist investigations. You can read more about it at (Free registration required): winxpnews.com... Proponents of the system point out that when it was used to generate lists of potential suspects after the September 11 attacks, five of the names that appeared were those of hijackers on the four planes that were flown into the twin towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Critics acknowledge that such a comprehensive and all-powerful database might make it easier to target criminals, but also has a vast potential for abuse and virtually eliminates the concept of personal privacy for the much larger population of law-abiding citizens. MATRIX was created by a private company in Florida called Seisint, and expanded by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and then by the U.S. Justice Department. Several states that had previously agreed to participate in the project withdrew later, and now only Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Connecticut are contributing to the cost and using the information. The Miami Herald reported last week that the ACLU has asked the federal government to withdraw its funding. The founder of Seisint was forced to resign in the wake of investigations linking him to drug smuggling in the past. You can read the ACLU's stand on MATRIX at: winxpnews.com...

That has to be one of the worst acronyms I've seen for a long time. But I suppose "MATIE" wouldn't have got it mentioned here

Another breach of our liberty and privacy being disguised as a terrorism prevention tool. Our goverments and media imploy more methods of control on us than we realise, its one of the reasons 'The Matrix' is so successful. It caters to our subconscious fear of being spied on and controled. Many current Sci-fi films have this idea behind them, that and man versus machine. This is because our mass fears are based around these ideas. Its like in the 1960's when most scifi films were about alien invaders, many people were afraid of communist invasion and such so films based on this hidden anxiety became the most popular.
Read 'The Hidden Persuaders' by Vance Packard, it was published in 1957 but it has a very extensive evaluation of some of the tecniques used by the media to control us. Much of it is based on knowing our deepest fears and aspirations and exploiting us through it. It was written in the fifties so imagine how many more techniques have been perfected now.
It is very scary indeed.