At the FBI, IT pros are working with Visual Analytics Inc., a provider of information-sharing software and services, to build a portal to improve intelligence-data visibility. The main thrust of the FBI's data-sharing effort is to launch by September its Multi-Information Sharing Initiative, which will let FBI satellite offices share information with each other and with other law-enforcement agencies. The FBI MISI is built upon Visual Analytics' Digital Information Gateway, which provides search and retrieval of data from multiple databases, documents, Web sites, and E-mails simultaneously, and VisuaLinks, a graphical-analysis tool used to discover patterns, trends, and hidden networks within this data.
The ability of each office and agency to manage its own data could help ensure MISI's success, because no one is giving up ownership of the information they've worked hard to collect, says Dave O'Connor, Visual Analytics' president and chief technology officer. "The data also is always timely because it remains at the source."
Other programs, such as Total Information Awareness and the Multistate Antiterrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, project, called for agencies to turn over data to a central database. "A lot of people are worried about giving up control, but the more you make your data available, the more central you become to investigative work," Visual Analytics CEO Chris Westphal says. The FBI declined to comment on its project.
Where data-sharing efforts may proceed from here now depends a lot on government policy makers. The technology is ready, but given the current political climate, the question is, how far will they go?
Illustration by Michael Morgenstern
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