Homeland Defense and IT?

Using web / internet technologies and long standing and proven brick and mortar manufacturing concepts coupled with some emerging concepts.

I'll explain more once I hear about your ideas...

Currently reading Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines. Interesting concepts. I'll add more later. Let's hear yours?

I know of several concepts.

In IT:
Complex Adaptive Systems
Artificial Intelligence
Neural Technologies

In Manufacturing:
TQM
JIT
Production Types: ETO, Mass, Job Shop

Can any opf these be employed?

Are IT people capable of thinking out-of-the-box in general? Or has the IT expert become overwhelmed by accountant myopia and pucker-butt thinking?

by maxwell edison Sep 8, 2002

Information Technology isn't the desired end result, per se, but rather a means to an end.

“Can information technology help solve many of the homeland defense issues”, you ask?

Of course it can help – just like many other things that can help - but only if people with that information utilize the technology. Bureaucratic protectiveness, distrust between competing government agencies, red tape and incompetence stripping the effectiveness between the private sector and government, outdated and ineffective laws, an overwhelmingly large bureaucratic structure (monster), and good old politics all play(ed) a part in the breakdown of communication and/or our defenses.

You stated that, “One of the main complaints about the events of 9/11 was a supposed failure of intelligence's ability to share information between dissimilar government and private organizations.”

It wasn’t the inability to share that information, but rather the reluctance to do so - and, in some cases, the outdated and/or ill-advised laws that made it illegal to do so. (The CIA and FBI, for example, were prohibited by law from sharing most information between those agencies.)

(continued…)

by darrellblackhawk Sep 12, 2002

Bingo!

by pam Sep 14, 2002

I see you already made my point. Thank you for putting it more eloquently.

by maxwell edison Sep 8, 2002

You’re concerned about the, “lack of focus on information management”. The same problems as described above apply here as well, but that is, in my opinion, more of a past problem than a present (or future) one. That issue is indeedbeing addressed, so I don’t believe that there is a lack of focus to manage and coordinate intelligence information. And I’m sure that Tom Ridge would disagree as well.

Information Technology is a tool, no more, no less. IT, in and ofitself, is useless. It’s the people, the principles, and the purpose that will be the ultimate driving force in the efforts to prevail. And prevail we will.

As a side note, the primary responsibility of the United States government is, in my opinion, to provide security from all foes – both foreign and domestic. This primary responsibility has, in my opinion, been relegated to back seat status behind a plethora of social engineering issues that should not be government’s concern in the first place. It’s high time we, as a nation, redefine our priorities and responsibilities, and act accordingly.

by road-dog Sep 8, 2002

In this day and age, there is a constant turnover of federal power between two parties who have distinctly different priorities.

It seems that social programs bloat during Democratic administrations at the expense of defense spending. When Republicans enter the White House, there is a huge expenditure in repairing the military. Meanwhile, they cannot curtail "entitlement" spending under threat of being accused of "trying to starve people". Thus, the federal budget grows ad nauseum.

The only way to stop this cycle of madness is to place EVERY federal program under Constitutional review. If a program falls outside Constitutional guidelines, then an amendment needs to be passed in order for it to continue in existence. Then a supermajority vote with state acceptance needs to occur. Hence, many social engineering programs will fail to be ratified and funded.

Yup, it's a pipe dream, but you gotta have faith in SOMETHING!

by maxwell edison Sep 8, 2002

That is indeed a great idea. But there would be endless debate over the meaning of this, that and the other thing. For example, the Constitutional phrase appearing in the preamble of the Constitution, "promote the general Welfare" is, perhaps, the most abused, misread, and misapplied phrase (word) in government and politics today.

Some, perhaps even most, people think that this phrase gives the government broad powers in that regard - even though James Madison (considered the father of the Constitution) argued in various Federalist Papers to the contrary, and even though the preamble is not a source of power for any department of the Federal Government.

This would be a great debate/discussion, but I wouldn't want to hijack and divert Mr.Miami's topic at hand.

(However, if someone were to start another discussion on that or a similar topic, I would certainly be an active participant. It's a topic very dear to my heart.)

Regards,

Maxwell

by ttrinh Sep 9, 2002

You cited, and I agree, all the valid reasons for this to happen, namely the human and policy makers must realize this need and act to implement it.

Mr.Miami howerver, wanted to discuss specific IT technologies that could help in this effort, as a tool (as also noted by you). When info sharing will be in wide scale practice, there will be tons and tons of data to sift thru, and data mining tech, data analysis can certainly help. Don't quote me on this, but I remember reading from Times magazine that after 9/11, the citizen report case reaching federal agencies were way up, and if divided equally, each agent must follow up on 40 reports each (maybe more ?).

So his question is also valid, in wondering which technology could be most efficient to gather up minor details contained in each report that a human could easily discard in reading each individual case, but can add up to scary things if you can read thru hundreds of reports and build up the big pictures....

He cited several different potentials out there :

The Age of Spiritual Machines
Complex Adaptive Systems
Artificial Intelligence
Neural Technologies

In Manufacturing:
TQM
JIT
Production Types: ETO, Mass, Job Shop

..and I'm for one, is interested in reading more contributions to this specific topic

Tuan Trinh

by apache5056 Sep 13, 2002

I believe that there was enough information about 9-11 out there to prevent it. The sad truth is, no one knew any of the minor details to prevent it.

I for one have faith in our government and it's ability to access issues of violent acts of major proportions and take the aproperate actions to keep me and my family safe. Yes, it is sad when a few bugs get through a crack but no house is totally safe. This is the world we have built and must live in it.

As far as gathering information toprevent future attacks....I say never toss a stone in a glass house and that is where those pond-scum, low-lifes should be living and we should build it for them. Can you say 'Nuec-um'.

Building a common communications factor is not a bad idea but using artificial intelligence or neural technologies is not the answer. Putting together a machine that can think, learn, and act on it's own without human intervention is not a good idea. We must maintain the level of human interaction. If an artificial intelligent machine was built, how long would it take for it to realize how inequipped we really are...

Yes, I'm a Trekie....and my favorite movie is The Matix and The Terminator. Scared????...:o)

by darrellblackhawk Sep 12, 2002

Although I cut my teeth in hardware; and still enjoy fiddling; I found your statement -"IT professionals seem to focus on hardware architectures and hardware problems predominantly" - somewhat misleading. I, and many I know, spend most of our days concentrating on information architecture, business rules, application impact, etc.

On another note, I think we as the information technologists should assist the government departments in anyway we can. Be it coordinating distributed systems that crack suspicious communications, legal spying :O on those we believe are challenging our way of life, etc.

I could get extreme and I was extremely pissed when on September 11th, 2001 the two towers crumbled.

Enough of my rambling... Drop the bombs...

Hmmm... I wonder if I'll get flamed:-)

by darrellblackhawk Sep 12, 2002

On another... another note...

Whether our intelligence organizations are getting it right, or the terrorists are so discombobulated now, in hiding until the opportune moment, or a combination of all, I'd like to thank all of the intelligence operatives who are working 24/7 to keep our shores as safe as they have been.

Thank you! Your work is appreciated.

by pam Sep 14, 2002

I'd ask where the switch is.

by pam Sep 14, 2002

I believe the various agencies inability to communicate was more of a process issue than it was a technical issue. Yes, technologies would need to merge, but I think there's a lot of stomping ground and toe stepping that was as much a problem for the perceived problems.

IT professional have over the years changed from the techies to more business analysis, as required by the end users. It's no longer enough to say, "What are your requirements", but also to include "Perhaps you should consider doing this..." We must understand the business as much as the people running the business in order to produce the best product for the customers.

Wow! We covered alot of ground! Ok,In my view I think this is a phased approach to implementing effective IT systems that deliver the kind of knowledge we need to defend this country or respond rapidly in business to changing market conditions.

First, Let us consider a few things. History is irreversible, the threat is emergent, and the future cannot be predicted.

Second, we need a combination of wisdom and knowledge. Humans provide wisdom - the savvy application of experience to make quantum leaps in knowledge. Technology can provide Humans with lines of logic having truth reports behind them. A truth report is how that line of logic was assembled. A line of logic is knowledge.

Knowing this, how can technology be used to organize knowledge for presentation to humans to apply wisdom?

P.S. I'll add in the phases after I hear more about your thoughts?

For over 3 years now I have been deeply involved in some really high end stuff. In October I hope to make a presentation on a vision...

I hope to wean a opportunity to lead a team of developers and technology people down the path to this vision.

Your ideas and comments are helpful to me... Plus I can see what kind of minds we have out there. I believe strongly in the human mind. It is also my belief that IT people are at the heart of it all. They know more about operational processes than anyone else.

In fact, in sorts (other than my stock portfolio) I am glad to see these accounting scandals. I think it is opening the eyes of many who put far too much emphasis on accountants running companies. Unfortunately, Congress has probably created a stronger culture that infects corporate America with more accountants now that CEO's are held personally accountable on financial signoffs. What company is going to higher a CEO that is not a CPA? Ever hear of a company hiring a CEO who is a IT guy?

Anyhow, that aside my principal interest is information management.

Smart technology guys will realize that corporate America is doomed to implode.

IT has formed a culture that is hacking away at traditional corporate America. We are headed for a time when there be a paradigm shift away from large cubical farms and huge organizations like Union Carbide - the largest company in the world.

While another discussion there is mounting evidence this may be approaching soon.

The vision I have tagged onto is partly what will battle against Corporate America. Nonetheless, I want to hear from you more.

I'll be on the road until next weekend. If I get a chance I'll log in and respond.

Look forward to your comments...

Union Carbide is not the largest company in the world. In fact, Union Carbide doesn't even exist anymore.

In 1999 Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide for about $11.6 billion. The Dow-Carbide merger was a tax-free, stock-for-stock pooling of interests with the resulting corporation being owned 75 percent by Dow shareholders and 25 percent by Union Carbide shareholders. (So at the time, Dow Chemical was bigger than Union Carbide by a 3-1 margin.) Two Union Carbide directors joined the board of Dow.

As far as being the largest company in the world, the usual reference for such things is valuation. Dow Chemical corporation is valued (market capitalization) at around $26 billion. By contrast, Microsoft has a valuation of almost 10 times that at $254 billion. And General Electric, the largest company in the world right now, is valued at $278 Billion. Microsoft, at one time, had a valuation higher than that of GE, but the recent "correction" in the stock market put GE back on top.

More on Union Carbide later (maybe). There are some very interesting (albeit off-topic) facts in its history.

Union Carbide employed the most people and was the largest conglomerate. Its valuation may not have been as high as other companies.

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/d/dow.html

Dow chemical (which absorbed Union Carbide) Number of employees: 52,689

Source:

Top 25 US employers: (Dow/Union Carbide is/was a US corporation, as are all on the list, and include all employees, whether foreign and domestic.)

1 Wal-Mart Stores 1,244,000
2 General Motors 386,000
3 McDonalds 364,000
4 United Parcel Service 359,000
5 Ford Motor 345,991
6 Sears Roebuck 323,000
7 IBM 316,303
8 General Electric 313,000
9 Kroger 305,000
10 Citigroup 242,000
11 Albertsons 235,000
12 SBC Communications 220,090
13 Delphi Automotive Systems 211,000
14 Tyco International 202,000
15 Home Depot 201,000
16 Boeing 198,000
17 Safeway 192,000
18 Target 182,650
19 HCA-Healthcare 168,000
20 Sara Lee 154,000
21 United Technologies 153,800
22 Marriott International 153,000
23 Fedex 149,000
24 AT&T 147,800
25 Bank of America 142,724

Source:

http://specials.ft.com/ft500/may2001/FT3RTTEZKMC.html

If you still think that Dow/Union Carbide is and/or ever was the largest company - by any measure - please provide numbers and source.

Thanks.

1973. Three employees killed at Puerto Rico complex.

1973. Benzene gas leak at the killed an employee.

1973. Employee at West Virginia killed by propane fumes.

1975 Explosion at Union Carbide plant killed six employees.

1978. Worker electrocuted in Indonesia.

1980 EPA fined Union Carbide $550,000 for air pollution violations.

1981. Union Carbide fined $50,000 for spilling 25,600 gallons of propylene oxide into the Kanawha River.

1981 Union Carbide reported that more than half its Indonesian employees suffered from kidney disease due to exposure to mercury.

1982 Inspection team indicated that the plant at Bhopal, India was unsafe.

1982 Tank containing acrolein exploded at Louisiana plant; windows a mile and a half from the plant were blown out, and 17,000 people were evacuated.

1983. An excess of cancer deaths is reported at Union Carbide's Texas plant.

1984. West Virginia agencies fine Union Carbide $105,000 for hazardous waste violations.

1984: A Union Carbide warned of a runaway reaction that could cause a catastrophic failure of the storage tanks holding the poisonous gas at West Virginia plant.

1984 Bhopal, India disaster killed thousands of people.

1985 Union Carbide notified EPA that 190 chemical leaks had occurred at its West Virginia plant.

1985 5,700 pounds of acetone and mesityl oxide leaked from a Union Carbide plant in West Virginia.

1985 Facility leaked methylene chloride and aldicarb oxime, chemicals used to manufacture the pesticide Temik; six workers were injured, and more than a hundred residents were sent to the hospital.

1986 OSHA alleged 221 violations of 55 health and safety laws, and proposed $1.4 million in fines.

1986 Explosion injures employee at West Virginia.

(continued..)

1986 Distributed $951 million as partial payment in a class action lawsuit

1986 Indian government filed Bhopal suit against Union Carbide, seeking $3 billion.

1986 Distributed $102 million as partial payment in a class action lawsuit

1987. Union Carbide Corporation operated a uranium mine in Uravan, Colorado from the 1930s to 1984. In 1987, UC signed an agreement to pay $40 million to clean up its Uravan uranium contamination, and to pay the state $2.8 million in legal costs.

1987: Union Carbide to pay $408,500 to settle 556 alleged health and safety regulations violations at its West Virginia plants.

1988 Explosion of 4,300 pounds of ethylene oxide at West Virginia; tetranaphthalene was spilled into the Kanawha River.1988 Payment of $31.7 million in tentative settlement of a class action lawsuit

1988 Bhopal court issues arrest warrant for former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson after he failed to respond to a summons.

1989. Union Carbide, one of three defendents in an asbestos cancer lawsuit, settled for $900,000.

1989-1990. GAF-Boyd Jeffries-Union Carbide stock manipulation case.

1989 EPA proposed civil penalty of $325,000 against Union Carbide Corporation for violations of the Clean Water Act.

1990. Court rejected a challenge by Union Carbide to overrule EPA regulations from 1989 on hazardous waste landfill liners and leak detection systems.

1990 Union Carbide facility leaked methyl isocyanate gas, injuring seven workers, and muriatic acid, after which 15,000 residents were ordered to remain indoors.

1990 Mexican environmental agency took action against Union Carbide for illegally dumping hazardous waste at Matamoros, Mexico, near Brownsville, Texas.

1991 Explosion at Union Carbide plant killed worker, and injured 26 others. Plant shutdown cost UC $50 million in income. In September, OSHA proposed a fine of $2,803,500 for 112 willful viola

1991 380,000 gallons of chloroform spilled into Guayanilla Bay at Ponce, Puerto Rico.

1991EPA issued enforcement order to UC for clean-up of groundwater contamination in California.

1991 Union Carbide filed a consent decree for violations of the Clean Water Act at their West Virginia facility. They agreed to a penalty $188,398.

1991UC voluntarily disclosed violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act - penalties exceed $100,000.

1991 Chemical tank explosion killed employee at West Virginia plant - subsequently fined $151,000 for 23 health and safety violations.

1992. Union Carbide agreed to pay $8.2 million to settle a suit by residents near the Brio Superfund site near Houston.

1992. Union Carbide rejected a shareholder resolution for the corporation to sign the CERES (Valdez) Principles of environmental conduct

1992 EPA served a complaint on UC for violations of the hazardous waste laws in connection with disposal of wastes from the Texas City, Texas

1992 Indian court orders extradition of retired Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson.

1992 EPA issued order requiring UC to clean up the Warwick (New York) Landfill Superfund site.

1993. For the second year, Union Carbide rejected a shareholder resolution calling for the corporation to sign the CERES (Valdez) Principles of environmental conduct. The corporation also rejected another resolution calling for it to disclose information on the risks of, and its procedures for, toxic chemical accidents.

1993 Unspecified amount of benzene, 25,920 pounds of methane, 67,490 pounds of ethylene, and 40,000 pounds of "refinery by-product gases" were spilled in several incidents at Texas City, Texas.

1993 Explosion at Union Carbide plant in West Virginia killed one employee and critically injured two others.

(cont..)

1993 EPA issued a complaint to UCC&P alleging violations of the Clean Air Act at the Texas City, Texas plant, seeking a civil penalty of $194,550.

1994 EPA fined Union Carbide $75,000 for not reporting a leak of ethylene oxide at its West Virginia plant.

1994 Union Carbide joined a tentative $4.7 billion settlement of Dow Corning's silicone breast implant litigation. Union Carbide to pay $138 million over two years.

1994 India had taken steps to have former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson extradited to India for his failure to appear in court in connection with the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

1999 Dow Chemical is buying Union Carbide for about $11.6 billion.

1999 Lawsuit Seeks Compensation For 1984 Disaster Victims. A federal lawsuitis seeking unspecified damages from Union Carbide Corp. for the "world's worst" industrial accident that killed at least 7,000 people in Bhopal, India, in 1984. The class-action suit accuses the company, which owned 50.9 percent of the plant, of "unlawful, reckless and depraved indifference to human life."

2000. Former Union Carbide Official Avoids Summons "A top executive at Union Carbide during the 1984 chemical disaster at Bhopal, India, has apparently gone into seclusion toavoid a summons to appear in a Manhattan federal court for civil proceedings against him and the company. Warren M. Anderson, who was the company's chairman, has vacated his last known address and Union Carbide officials have declined to help track him down.

Wait - I forgot the most important one:

September 31, 1993:

President Bill Clinton and Vice President AL Gore presented William Joyce of Union Carbide with a National Medal of Technology Award; the awards are considered the nation's highest for science and commercialization of technology.

Thanks! Max made my point that Corporate America is dying.

Max: I hope you spend just as much time working on technology issues.

You certainly have a way of missing one's point. You should learn to think outside the box. The whole point(s) of my messages was two fold:

1. You indicated that you were gathering information for a presentation. Making an error in fact is one ofthe worst things that can happen to a speaker/presenter. And saying that Union Carbide is (was) the world's largest company is like saying New Jersey is the largest (U.S.) State. I would hate for one of my peers to make such a mistake. I was quite surprised when you tried to qualify your initial statement with another faulty fact. So, of course, I was compelled to qualify my disagreement as well. Go ahead, make as many false statements as you like. I'm sure your audience won't know the difference. Nonetheless, you're welcome for the time I contributed to your research project.

2. The facts I posted about the abysmal safety/environmental record of Union Carbide over the past 3 decades was a build up to the real point I was trying to make. And that was to point out the shameless and unprincipled hypocrisy of the Clinton-Gore administration. (I even made a mistake in facts in my presentation - September 31?)

And, since you brought it up, I couldn't disagree more about your opinionon the demise of corporate America. Corporate America is not dying. And if it were to die, America as we know it would also die, and that would not be a good thing. The business of America IS business, pure and simple. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Go ahead and site the Union Carbides, the Enrons, and the WorldComs. But for every bad business one could point to, I could point to a thousand good ones. Don't fall into the liberal trap of demonizing big business. If you do, you'll only be contributing to the attempted sabotage of America's very way of life and, more importantly, the vehicle of its success - business, both big and small.

by road-dog Sep 16, 2002

But not for the reason you cite in your truly sophomoric reply, Mr. Miami. His research is pointless due to the fact that you will not learn from the information provided.

Your posting style has been rather unidimensional on this subject, throw out BS, then throw out another request for response. You have yet to provide any backing for your own flawed assertions.

Your topic in this thread is the death of corporate America. You have yet to propose an alternative of any kind. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple, so let's explore them, shall we?

SOCIALISM
Central control of development, production, and distribution. Mankind has been there, done that. They had to build a wall around it to keep people IN, not OUT.

ANARCHY
No control over development, production, and distribution. To see that in action, take a look at the GNP of countries like Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and other third world countries. You can see this for yourself, ride along with the Red Cross on a shipment of famine relief rice.

Suffice it to say, either option is a failure in experience.

What you propose is nothing less than the assassination of the American dream.

I find it offensive that you find it necessary to attack Max on how much time he spent on his reply. You haven't the intellectual honesty to dispute his posting on it's veracity, rather than attacking the messenger and declaring victory without any explanation. Had you exercised even a modicum of diligence, you would have noticed that Max's postings are dated on Sunday; not a big work day in the IT field.

Rather than thanking him for his attempts to provide you with better information, and obviously on his own time, you choose to be insulting.

I wish you well, Mr. Miami; I'm sure that there is a position in academia for you where your salary will be paid with money taxed from people who are expected to produce results.

by maxwell edison Sep 16, 2002

Road Dog,

You may or may not have seen my post which was titled, "Corporate America is not dying", but therein lies the explanation of the point I was attempting to make. Yes, those messages were pointless as it pertains to this particular topic (however one may or may not define this particular topic), thus the titles warning of the "off-topic" theme.

This whole Union Carbide tangent was only an attempt to correct a faulty fact, regardless of how it may or may not have contributed to theoverall topic. Not only am I an IT professional, but I'm also an investor, and as such I am pretty familiar with the American corporate scene. I suppose I just can't pass up on an opportunity to share an opinion on not only technology, but on politics and business as well. (But if you think about it, the three are pretty entwined.)

Many thanks for your kind words of support.

Regards,

Maxwell

Buildings blocks are the basic components of constructing far more complex information organizations. These building blocks should be modelled after the JIT U-shaped cells. Raw information is inputed into a building block. Then 'knowledge manufacturing' processes are applied to the raw info inputs. Finally, a information product is outputted.

If there are sufficient numbers of these building blocks having different 'knowledge manufacturing' processes that are interdependent and loosely coupled, then sophisticated or complex knowledge can be assembled even in non-linear ways.

Each Building block has the necessary tooling and staff to produce its unique output that can be sold to other blocks as raw inputs to be further processed. Thus information can now be managed financially. More importantly, each building block stands on its own merit and is responsible for its successes or failures.

So my question to you is what technology can best be used to achieve this goal of creating building blocks as such?

Organizing building blocks into different logical schemes can produce a wide variety of knowledge products. Using software or graphically based views blocks can be added, turned on or off, and placed into queues.

The info architecture tool wouldbe in sorts a very sophisticated data mining tool that manages information flow between the blocks and can even be designed to throttle bandwidth utilization.

From a business or homeland defense standpoint new information architectures could be spawned on a moments notice. This would have the effect of making organizations highly responsive to emerging conditions as blocks are always manned and doing their thing but added, remove, or positioned differently based on intuition or emerging conditions.

How should IT be best applied achieve this goal?

Here is a peek...

Phase Three: Standardize Transfer
Phase Four: Use smart agents
Phase Five: ???

Think of the information processes currently in business. These information processes are often found in the way cubicals are organized. In manufacturing, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) eventhough manual labor is performed just as much if not more is information processes.

by anid Sep 16, 2002

not the Healer of mankind's dissatisfaction of each other. Do we ask the same of the US Postal Service?

Your message is too cryptic.

by road-dog Sep 16, 2002

When trying to prove a point using empirical or historical data, one must not fall into the trap of using a specific data point to prove a general theory. It is often much more accurate to argue from the general to the specific rather than the reverse.

I believe that this is the flawed methodology that is being used to support the theory of the demise of corporate America. In order to demonstrate the fallacy of this supposition, let me draw a couple of parallels:

Nonexistence of Union Carbide = death of corporate America

Lack of sales of Village People Albums = death of the recording industry

Large numbers of Social Security Recipients Die = Social Security kills people

Suffice it to say, any hypothesis, regardless of validity can be supported by an specific data point taken out of the context of larger trends and contributing factors.

To put it in more realistic terms, in spite of the spectacular implosions at Worldcom and Global crossing, I still have idiots calling me trying to get me to buy cell phone services. If these companies do not indicate the demise of their own industries, they certainly do not indicate the death of corporate America.

To support a hypothesis on a specific as Mr. Miami has done is intellectually dishonest at worst, and lazy at best.

by road-dog Sep 16, 2002

Regardless of whatever reorganizations and data relationships are currently underway in the private sector, these methodologies do not translate well into intelligence gathering and analysis. Intelligence is compartmentalized for many good reasons. If all data is made available to all departments, then one must assure that all persons coming into contact meet security requirements. This is a much larger job than most people think. When I was involved with DOD projects in the space program, my security clearance cost in the neighborhood of $20,000 to maintain. If one multiplies this by several thousand people in dozens of services and agencies, the cost alone becomes prohibitive.

Now add the complexities involving these dozens of services and agencies and their rivalries, the government being the political animal that it is. Suffice it to say that a free exchange of intelligence data is a foolhardy effort at best until all persons are cleared and a more coherent infrastructure is created first.

Creation of the Office of Homeland Security is certainly a step in the right direction. If this agency can create an environment where data is massaged into usable form and weighed for veracity, then the newer information management paradigms will become valid.

Having worked for the DoD you understand that the systems are tiered. Moreover, In order to be on those networks you have to have the appropriate level of clearance. So in effect everyone on a specific network has the same clearance.

Secondly, information sharing is mostly linear manual methods that are some disorganized today.

Automating the information sharing and creating an knowledge manufacturing system not unlike making a widget is fully possible.

There are 17 agencies in the Federal government. Oops, now 18. Of these all are generating information that contribute towards homeland defense. Not just the DoD or HomeLand defense.

Bob, In the DoD I stood up a TCCC and was the IMO for a Crisis Action Center for a Combatant Commander. Today I am doing other things just as important.

by admin Sep 23, 2002

i don ubderstand why????????? all teh intranet is fulled of cra<*>zy writing lik\ DoS and D00D and DoD? Wat is ti that si up with intranet speling? (sic)?

Sorry we got side track on the death the Corporate america and all this other stuff. I want to hear from you regarding systems architectures.