Regional Readiness For Intelligence Information Sharing To Support Homeland Security

The Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age was created to produce recommendations on how to best leverage intelligence and information to improve security without compromising existing civil liberties. Their second report proposed that the government set up an information-sharing network using currently available technology to improve our ability to prevent terrorist attacks, while protecting civil liberties. The Markle recommendations have been incorporated into the recent Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The proposition is that the Markle task force recommendations are sufficient to achieve the required data integration in the United States. To affirm or falsify the proposition, three existing systems will be reviewed: Alabama\u27s Law Enforcement Tactical System Portal (LETS), Florida\u27s Statewide Data Sharing Effort (FINDER), and Orange County, Florida\u27s Integrated Criminal Justice System. This study found that there is no overall model for national intelligence analysis that incorporates the capabilities that law enforcement has for collection and analysis in with the federal capabilities for collection and analysis. This may ultimately limit the regional systems\u27 success. Recommendations for potential initial models are made. In addition, recommendations for improvement in each regional system are provided. Finally, further research is needed to refine a national intelligence analysis model that can be supported by a distributed information sharing network