E-Business offers homeland defense fixes: Information sharing among U.S. police agencies could help anti-terrorism efforts.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.

After the September 11 attacks, agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency worked frantically to track potential suspects.

Each agency quickly gathered information on the whereabouts and activities of the alleged hijackers. But they did not necessarily share the information with one another, and some analysts say that such lack of communication between the various law-enforcement agencies continues to be a problem in protecting the United States from future attacks.

This need for connectivity, meanwhile, is opening new business opportunities for companies in the information technology sector. Industry representatives interviewed for this story generally agreed that the task of linking large, stove-piped agencies is difficult, but doable.

"We have to write a software program to pluck off information were looking for in suspected terrorists, such as visa violators who just applied for weapons permits, said Robert Nabors, chief of homeland security for San Diego-based EDS Government Solutions. A retired Army major general, Nabors used to serve as the Pentagon's chief information officer. He was also deputy commander of the White House Communications Agency.

"There has to be information sharing," Nabors said. "The various databases of the FBI, Customs, INS, Treasury and others, must be linked so things can fit together across the federal government and provide it to local law enforcement," he said. "On September 11, cities were attacked, and it was the local beat cop, the local firefighter and the local emergency medical personnel who provided the first response and who maintained the front line until the federal agencies could respond," he said.

Nabors stressed that one of the biggest challenges is "aggregating data, which is a privacy issue that should not be abused," he said. "But our law enforcement agencies simply must have the information available to protect lives.

"The first goal of any homeland security initiative should be to enable secure communication and ensure interoperability on multiple levels, to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time, in an easily usable form," Nabors said.

EDS also is working on biometrics technology, such as retinal scan, electronic fingerprints and facial-recognition software to enhance homeland security, said Nabors. A homeland security solution, however, "will require long-term capitalization...