On January 7-8, 2010 at the George Washington University Campus, the IJIS Institute 2010 Winter Briefing was held. Both government and industry were in attendance and came to hear presentations on new technology programs and the way those advances are being utilized in different agencies. The IJIS Institute Provides training, technical assistance, national scope issue management and program management services to help government fully realize the power of information sharing. IJIS was founded in 2001 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation with national headquarters on the George Washington University Virginia campus in Ashburn, VA.
This recap will be a two part series, so look for the second installation January 14.
Patrick McCreary, Associate Deputy Director of the Bureau of Justice assistance (BJA) first spoke on the "Current Activities and Initiatives of the Bureau." The BJA is the major source for the most funding of Justice Programs throughout the country. There are about eleven thousand active grants totaling to about $6.1 Billion dollars. The most current project by the BJA is their Justice Information Sharing Action Plan, which will help information sharing among corrections, combating gang violence, tracing crime guns, and many more topics.
James Burch, Acting Director of the BJA explained that in order to "Improve the Quality of Justice," the BJA must depend on fostering legitimacy within the public realm. Transparency and trust among US citizens is very important to the BJA. As evidence, they have begun to put their decisions (and decision making) online, hoping to engage communities. Successes of the BJA's Quality have been many this year:
- The Global Advisory committee- Applying technology responsibly, information sharing, creating guidelines.
- GFIPM 'Connect' Project- Trust relationships, 'RISK' with PA and CISA.
- National Information Exchange Program (NIEM) - Adoption will grow in OMB. This is a National, not Federal model.
- National Data Exchange Program- Analysts with lots of data. Begin sharing incident data.
- Predictive Policing- Improving equality of enforcement and prevention through state intelligence fusion centers.
Justin Murphy, Deputy Director of the Department of Justice spoke on NIEM and PMO. Mr. Murphy explained that effective governance, efficient infrastructure, and consistent reuse will lead to the interoperability of NIEM. Future successes will extend life through IT renewal. Bridging unstructured data with NIEM, data independence and cloud computing will contribute positively in the future. Look out for a further in-depth blog on all aspects of NIEM coming later this week!
Kshemendra Paul, U.S. Chief Architect, Office of Management and Budget also spoke on the "Federal Enterprise Architecture and the NIEM: Do they Collide or Contribute?" Of course, Mr. Paul quickly explained that of course they coincide and contribute, they were built that way. Mr. Paul illustrated in his presentation that the FEA context has a number of architectural layers, which segments into a methodology for strategic planning through to execution. However, Mr. Paul stipulates that it is not all about architecture and technology. A lot of it is whether governance is in place that allows one to plan/carryout the project, knowing if the resources needed are available and everyone understands the goal that is expected.
Professor Chris Bronk, Fellow for the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy and Adjunct Professor for the Department of Computer Science at Rice University, gave a more theoretical and thought provoking presentation on the "Role of IT in Global Law Enforcement and Homeland Security." He showed how the Homeland Security threat has migrated from countries (monolithic model) to individuals, or distributed threats. He pointed to Information technology as the solution, the need to "connect the dots" to make a better picture of the data being lumped together. He cautioned however, that Information Sharing ≠ Collaboration. Information sharing is a means to an end which is collaboration.
Maury Mitchell, Director, Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center, gave a more practical view of how agencies are utilizing technology through the "Connect Project: Interstate Information Sharing Technology." Mr. Mitchell illustrated how because each state has different "silos" of information, with different levels, and therefore information sharing is very difficult. Mr. Mitchell explains however, that with the Connect Project, a governed capability can securely access deep criminal justice-related data across disparate jurisdictions. GFIPM (Global Federated Identity and Privilege Management) also helps to solve the problem of different levels of user access in different states (a standardized security method). At the moment, AL, KS, NE, and WY are the states involved with this project, and Mr. Mitchell hopes more will join up soon.
Dr. Alan Shark, Executive Director of PTI, spoke about the capacity and future of Cloud Computing. He defined Cloud Computing, explaining that it must be the location neutral, outsourcing of processes, with online storage, platforms, and an online office. There are many advantages to a Cloud Computing online office. A company/agency can reduce costs (staff, equipment, overhead, hard/software), improve security and data security, can consume less power etc. However one needs to be conscientious to overcome the challenges when implementing a Cloud Environment due to the necessity of a stable/constant internet connection, the possibility of feature limitation, how backups are handled etc. Dr. Shark provides a checklist one would need if a Cloud Environment was being created: Ease of use for file sharing internal or external Types of access restrictions
- Ease of use for file sharing internal or external
- Types of access restrictions
- How do you measure security safeguards?
- How easily can you adjust issues of scalability
- How Accessible is a 'Help Desk'
- Ease of moving data or application to another cloud?
- Back-up Options
- Compliance and governance issues
- Power back-up and system redundancy
- Know the difference between a web based service and SaaS
Dr. Shark forecasts that the public will begin to embrace cloud computing. That private enterprise will increase its use of B2B, and that Government is beginning to see that the advantages of cloud computing outweigh the negatives.
Look for the Second installation of the IJIS Institute's Winter Conference Recap tomorrow, and a blog dedicated to an in-depth look at NIEM January 15.
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