In No Place to Hide, award-winning Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., lays out in unnerving detail the post-9/11 marriage of private data and technology companies and government anti-terror initiatives to create something entirely new: a security-industrial complex. Drawing on his years of investigation, O’Harrow shows how the government now depends on burgeoning private reservoirs […]
National Security
Our system of national security is full of holes – on the border, at the airports and inside our computers, where the fight against cyberterrorism rages.
Anti-Terror Database Got Show at White House
Note: This story is based in part on reporting by O?Harrow for his forthcoming book, to be published in January by Free Press and supported by the Center for Investigative Reporting. One day in January 2003, an entrepreneur from Florida named Hank Asher walked into the Roosevelt Room of the White House to demonstrate a […]
U.S. Backs Florida’s New Counterterrorism Database: ‘Matrix’ Offers Law Agencies Faster Access to Americans’ Personal Records
Police in Florida are creating a counterterrorism database designed to give law enforcement agencies around the country a powerful new tool to analyze billions of records about both criminals and ordinary Americans. Organizers said the system, dubbed Matrix, enables investigators to find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before, combining police […]
Don’t miss a story. Get our investigations delivered to your inbox.
Surveillance Proposal Expanded
A passenger-screening system designed to help capture terrorists could also be used to target people suspected of violent crimes, under a proposal approved by Department of Homeland Security officials. Previously, government officials said the surveillance system known as CAPPS II would be used only to target potential terrorists and their allies — limits intended to […]