Paxety Pages

The state agency is asking companies how they would provide local police across Florida with access to portions of people's credit reports and wants to find out which records "are readily available to law enforcement without subpoena or court order," public records show.

"We are legally entitled to that," Mark Zadra, chief of investigations for FDLE's Office of Statewide Intelligence, said Tuesday.

The ACLU has sued several states over the MATRIX program.  Officials there say 98-percent of Americans show up in the commercial data the FDLE wants.

Some law enforcement officials say they need the information to find people they need to get in touch with.  But let's take a look at some cases in which state officials have not been able to keep up with the information they have.

Rilya Wilson was a baby when she was taken into state custody.  From all appearances, the Department of Children and Family simply lost her, and the agency didn't realize it for years.  Her foster care-giver  has been charged with killing the child, but no body, or other trace of the little girl has ever been found.

John Evander Couey was a sex-offender registered with the State of Florida.  But the state didn't keep up with him, either. He's confessed to sneaking into a home only 150-yards from where he was staying, kidnapping a 9-year old girl, raping her, and then stuffing her into a plastic sack with a stuffed animal, and burying her alive.  Her body was found three weeks later. The police had no idea Couey lived in the neighborhood until well after her disappearance had been reported.

If the state can't keep up with the data it already has, on people it is already supposed to keep up with, why does it need more data on those of us who have no reason to be in state custody?