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The need for our federal and other law enforcement and
intelligence agencies to share and benefit from timely information
has been clearly demonstrated as a vital part of mission
revitalization since September 11, 2001.
This requirement becomes even more critical as the agencies
responsible for our security and safety form and deploy
Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) in, working together
in pursuit of that responsibility.
In order to share information between and among these
multiple forces and teams, a great deal of new capabilities
and upgrades for others are needed throughout all of these
organizations to gain this access, which is often classified
and not for public consumption. Sharing of law enforcement
information is a national mandate and ordered by the President.
The FBI as an integral arm of the Justice Department is
implementing the Justice Department “Law Enforcement Information
Sharing Program” (LEISP) through the FBI National Information
Sharing Strategy (NISS). An early capability of the NISS
has been the Regional Data Exchange Program, which is targeted
to bring added search and analysis capabilities to regional
law enforcement groups.
The FBI is upgrading functional systems and replacing
those no longer productive. Among these changes are extensive
efforts to get the information to the Agents in the field,
the JTTFs, and others requiring access, in the fastest possible
time. This requires hardware upgrades, PC replacements in
the field, server upgrades, significant physical, access,
and information security initiatives and changes, all of
which must come together without a hitch to gain the benefits
envisioned.
This ongoing modernization supported 200 users in December,
2004, and 2,000 users in January, 2005, an order of magnitude
in growth in one months’ time at 30 times the bandwidth!
The rest of 2005 will show further increases in subscribers
and speed, new initiatives in information sharing and the
ability to access, format, approve and distribute information
faster than ever before.
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