On the seventh floor of a tan, rectangular block building in Norwalk, Calif., behind a locked door, sit rows of cubicles—each one supplied with a PC, a phone that makes voice calls over the Internet, and double flat-panel monitors. In a few cubicles, analysts work intently on the computers. In the others, idle monitors display a silver ring encircling an American flag and a bald eagle flying out of a bell-shaped speaker. Images pour into the room—from a bank of six flat-screen TVs suspended from the ceiling that are tuned to Al Jazeera and five other newscasts; and from the smart boards, giant electronic whiteboards that hang around the walls beneath computers fixed with projectors. They flash air traffic updates, maps of the Los Angeles area, a picture of the Statue of Liberty.
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Since Sept. 11, the government has been trying to collect and share information across geographical and political boundaries to prevent another terrorist attack. This place—the Joint Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC), near Los Angeles—is the latest plan.

[…]

Now there’s the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, an idea that started in the LAPD’s anti-terrorism unit and won backing from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI before it was adopted by other agencies in the region. It’s taken more than three years to plan and launch. Ultimately, it is supposed to connect agencies across seven Southern California counties—fire departments, public health agencies, port police, airport police and many others—with international law enforcement agencies and local companies, like Disney, that oversee potential targets or important pieces of local infrastructure.

Analysts who work in the center think it’s an idea whose time has arrived.

Information technology has advanced since 2001, and the center benefits from that. Newer standards like Global Justice XML, which creates a common language for justice and public safety data; and service-oriented architecture, which exposes that data across different computer systems, make it faster and easier for agencies to share information. Right now, the chief software at the center—Memex, made by Glasgow, Scotland-based Memex Technology—is based on these standards.

[…]

In the end, the FBI helped build the center because the federal government had the specifications and knew what to do, Salas explains. The sheriff’s department contributed desks, PCs and telephones, and the LAPD (which is also using Memex) provided information-sharing technology, including software and TVs.

Today, center workers use a variety of analytical tools—Google Earth, ESRI’s ArcView GIS software, and Microsoft SQL, among others—to sift through information.

[…]

At A Glance: JRIC
Headquarters: 12440 E. Imperial Highway, Norwalk, CA 90650
Business: Establish networks and policies for sharing information across agencies in the seven-county Los Angeles area to improve public safety and thwart terrorist attacks.
Technology Chief: Mario Cruz, project manager
Financials: $2 million contribution each from the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, plus contributions from the state of California and the Department of Homeland Security.

[…]

Baseline Mag

Combine this with the new dictatorial powers of Lord Bush, and you have a system that is very difficult to resist, should the people who run these systems not understand that: “DICTATORSHIP….BAD”.

If REAL_ID and the biometric net are rolled out, they will dovetail seamlessly into this and every other ‘dot-connected’ total surveillance system.

Not surprisingly, this article is uncritical, unthinking and slobbering over the details…the ‘Gee Whiz’ effect. Like standing in awe of a spectacular lightning storm that is about to show its power to you up close and personal.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 at 4:57 pm and is filed under The Law.