Open Source Homeland

Great program:

Beyond Duct Tape and Color Codes
Since 9/11, the federal government has communicated with the public about homeland security in confusing and often inconsistent ways, from requests to purchase duct tape to color-coded threat levels. A new administration will offer the opportunity for a change in direction. Rep. Jane Harman, chair of the Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee; Frances Fragos Townsend, former Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush; and Jerome Hauer, former Director of the Office of Emergency Management in New York City, will address the critical question of how the public can better be incorporated into the homeland security mission. The Homeland Security Presidential Transition Initiative is a joint project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Third Way.

FBI — Zal Azmi – Press Room – Headline Archives 09-24-08

• Virtual Case File (VCF)
• SIPRNet
• Trilogy program
• Sentinel

Here’s the FBI’s answer to slow, siloed, and dumb offices:

FBI — ORION – Press Room – Headline Archives 09-22-08
Now we have such a tool, a next-generation system built from the ground up by our investigators and technology experts. We call it ORION—the Operational Response and Investigative Online Network.

ORION gives the FBI and its partners a real-time, online network to quickly and effectively coordinate efforts in crisis situations, no matter how many law enforcement personnel are involved…where they might be located…or how big the case.

So if an investigation expands from New York to Chicago to Miami, agents in every city could log into ORION and have instant access to every scrap of information on the case, says Supervisory Special Agent Mike McCoy, an investigator on the sniper case who helped design the system.

At 10 a.m. on November 13, join millions of Southern Californians in the ShakeOut Drill, the largest earthquake preparedness activity in U.S. history!

The Great Southern California ShakeOut includes the ShakeOut Drill and other events organized to inspire southern Californians to get ready for big earthquakes, and to prevent disasters from becoming catastrophes.

The Great Southern California ShakeOut