The National Sheriff's Association (NSA) held its 69th annual conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida last week – and while this event typically highlights State and Local Law Enforcement initiatives and First Responder technologies – this year's sessions had the added touch of Federal involvement in Tuesday's Keynote Greeting via Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano. While Secretary Napolitano gave appropriate credit to our nations Sheriff's for being the front running "eyes and ears" of monitoring the protection of our citizens, she also peppered her speech with a few items to correlate her department's main goals in support of Law Enforcement.

Particularly significant was Napolitano's comments on the REAL ID program – which as Governor of Arizona she repealed as an unfunded mandate – and where now running that program acknowledges Drivers Licenses will still need to be more secure, and she does expect a revamp of the program, but at the heart of the focus will be thwarting illegal immigrants at our borders, holding accountable those employers which harbor the use of immigrants in our country illegally, and especially identify those immigrants in the corrections facilities and our jail's systems who are not in this country legally (and who should be deported).

Napolitano stressed that it is City, County, Tribal and Local Law Enforcement which indentify the greatest records of suspicious criminal behavior at the heart of data collection in over 77 Intelligence Fusion Center Analysis points across the country. (Sessions during the Conference, and the message of this keynote speech, further support the sharing of data across state lines - and between federal and state agencies - for the purpose of proactively indentifying criminal behavior and terrorist threats in our homeland).

Through a FEMA, which has learned some hard lessons, and State and Local Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) that must face the realities of Federal Aide limits: these departments will have to communicate further and develop processes from proven results: accordingly it will be local First Responders that MUST bear the greatest planning resources and education of its citizens to insure safer outcomes in the event of our countries next disaster.

Many of the Sheriff's I spoke with at the event felt it's "too soon to tell" how this Administration's Homeland Security efforts will actually effect local Law Enforcement – as Secretary Napolitano is only 5 months into term – but they all admitted encouragement in a more "open" DHS (One that seems to acknowledge the powerful necessity of data, resources, analysis, funding and support of the Law Enforcement community; and one that also wants to make sure it's working hand-in-hand with Patrol Officers responsible for the monitoring of our nation's vulnerable borders).

Government Contractors should also be encouraged by some of this optimism. Many agencies expressed their interest in acquiring technologies to equip officers NOW – both as a push to outfit new recruits, and as part of integrating more field reporting tools to further access DOJ Information Sharing initiatives – yet the core of these purchasing motivation's has always been Sheriff's Offices willing to "go their own way" rather than waiting for Federal oversight, slow nationwide network deployments or State solutions not yet interoperable at the local level.

INPUT will post my Analyst Re-Cap of the Event – under our Industry Analysis and Public Safety Solutions portal – by the close of this week.