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 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
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MAY 24, 2004
Homeland Security's Missing Link [Page 2 of 2] "TERRORISM VARIES." While the military and intelligence agencies still face tremendous shortages of Arabic-speaking agents, efforts to mine huge vaults of public and private data with software designed to finger likely terrorists has sucked up an inordinate amount of political capital from top Homeland Security officials. Yet those predictive data-mining efforts, such as the now-defunct Total Information Awareness System championed by former Admiral John Poindexter and the MATRIX system, which connects disparate state-level information systems, remain highly controversial and largely unproven. Skeptics say they simply won't work or will create so many false alarms that the entire system will be worthless. Says Bruce Schneier, technology and security expert and author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World: "Like all crime, terrorism varies. You never know what's going to be important. And there are far fewer examples of terrorism to compare against than, say, auto theft. But data-mining assumes you know what you're looking for. Computers aren't good at that. That's a job for human agents. Unfortunately, hiring more agents doesn't play as well in the press as a $20 billion security project." True, the U.S. and its allies are spinning out a raft of interesting pilot programs such as the Hong Kong effort and a walk-through explosive-detection portal at a highly trafficked Amtrak rail station in New Carrollton, Md., just outside the Beltway. Homeland Security also is rolling out a new sophisticated breed of sensors to detect biological threats and chemical attacks in the Washington (D.C.) subway system. And it's taking steps toward rapid-fire adoption of standards for communications gear and radiation-detection equipment that will ensure federal, state, and local emergency personnel are using tools that work seamlessly together. LOOKS LIKE A NIKE. Indeed, thanks to computer-system upgrades, the FBI can finally send images or audio files over its own networks, and the G-men are using modern data-analysis techniques to parse leads, something that wasn't an option in the pre-September 11 era. Without a doubt, the digitization of America's borders is starting to pay dividends, as well. The application of radio-frequency identification technology -- smart, tamper-proof tags holding identifying information -- to mark trucks and cars that frequently pass over the border has helped cut down the grunt work of patrol agents stationed in the busy California crossing, just south of San Diego. Or take the software that accompanies the VACIS machine in Hong Kong and creates a database of shipment footprints to benchmark images for future comparison. "If the software sees 12 containers of Nike sneakers, then it knows what they should look like. If something marked as Nike sneakers doesn't match the image, then an alarm sounds and you can bring in the human inspectors," says Flynn. TOUGH TO WEAVE. Adds Charles McQueary, Undersecretary for science and technology at Homeland Defense: "We have 7,500 miles of borders between Canada and Mexico. It would take 6.6 million people to cover those borders. That's a ridiculous number. It illustrates the solutions to security problems cannot only be people-oriented." Indeed, the Bush Administration has committed some real dollars to funding tech as a part of the $39 billion Homeland Security budget. McQueary's unit has grown from 6 to 200-odd people with a budget of close to $1 billion to use as seed funding for technology projects around the country. At the same time, the federal government has handed out $20 billion to states and localities to help them upgrade their own security efforts. However, weaving all of these pieces together, from radios for local cops to biosensors for subway systems, into a broader plan to safeguard America is proving a far more difficult task and one that will likely take years to play out.
 By Alex Salkever, Technology editor for BusinessWeek Online
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