MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) An American inter-state attempt to aggregate government and commercial records on citizens for the claimed purpose of preventing terrorism. It has been widely criticized as a gross violation of civil liberties, vulnerable to abuse, and an ineffective waste of taxpayer money. Others claim it is a necessary part of the WarOnTerror, and that any private citizen information should be available in the war. Software developers may be particularly worried that even if the system is necessary, the data may be unreliable, the software unverified, and there is no way for "users/citizens" to verify the correctness of their data. ---- Not to be confused with TheMatrix series of movies (er. . maybe it is to be). ---- Its relation to a ConsensualMatrix is non-orthogonal. Units in a NonconsensualMatrix do not do the actual processing, although the individual states do. The non-consensual aspect is the data units (i.e. citizens) do not have a choice whether to participate or not - beyond voting everyone out of office. ---- As of this writing, 33 states are participating according to http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Mar/03112004/utah/146669.asp. There does not seem to be a publicly available list of which states.