Washington: In the aftermath of the botched Christmas day al Qaeda attempt to blow up an American plane, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is introducing several anti-terror tools into its system to prevent re-occurrence of such terror strike, a top official of the agency has told US lawmakers.
"To meet our national security mission, we have expanded our counter terrorism operations and honed our intelligence capabilities," FBI director Robert Mueller said in his testimony before the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.
Learning lessons from the December 25 experience, the FBI is also making a number of improvements to its information technology systems.
"We cannot gather the intelligence we need, analyse that intelligence, or share it with our law enforcement or intelligence partners, without the right technology," he said.
To strengthen the IT programmes that allow to communicate and share among all its partners, the FBI is consolidating its Unclassified Network with Law Enforcement Online, or LEO, which is the unclassified secure network they use to share information with registered law enforcement partners.
"This will provide a single platform that allows FBI employees to communicate and share with their internal and external partners. Currently, LEO provides a secure communications link to all levels of law enforcement and is available to more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies," he said.
"As part of the LEO platform, the FBI is delivering the eGuardian system, an unclassified counter terrorism tool available to our Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement partners through the FBI's secure LEO internet portal," he said.
eGuardian makes threat and suspicious activity information immediately available to all authorised users. The eGuardian system will work in tandem with Guardian, enabling law enforcement personnel to receive the most current information, he said.
"In return, any potential terrorist threat or suspicious activity information provided by law enforcement will be made available in Guardian entries and pushed outward to the FBI task forces," he said.
"We are also in the midst of developing what we call ‘Next Generation Identification’ system, which expands the FBI's fingerprint-based identification, known as IAFIS, to include additional biometric data. This will better enable us to find criminals and terrorists who are using the latest technology to shield their identities and activities," Mueller said.
FBI is also working to improve its confidential human source management system. "Intelligence provided by confidential human sources is fundamental to the FBI mission. To better manage that data, we have implemented a program known as DELTA," he said, adding that DELTA will provide FBI agents and intelligence analysts a uniform means of handling the administrative aspect of maintaining human sources.
It will also enable FBI Headquarters and Field Offices to better understand, connect, operate, and protect confidential human sources.
"Finally, we are improving our crisis management systems. The Operational Response and Investigative Online Network (ORION) is the FBI's next-generation Crisis Information Management System. ORION provides crisis management services to Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement and/or emergency personnel," Mueller said.
"It standardises crisis and event management processes, enhances situational awareness, and supports the exchange of information with other command posts," he added.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 11:36