The FBI's IT Expansion Plans

Lam1969 writes "The FBI is fast-tracking the hiring of IT professionals, reports Computerworld. Computer scientists, engineers, IT specialists and IT project managers are wanted to develop systems to support FBI analysts and agents working in the field. Large-scale database development projects are part of the FBI's IT expansion as well. From the article: "The FBI is also focusing on data warehousing as well as federated search technology, which allows a single search query to be deployed across a number of databases, regardless of whether those databases belong to the same protocol or platform.""

Comments

Real ID act

[BWJones]

This is likely to implement the Real ID act which essentially amounts to a federally unfunded mandated ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account or participate in almost any way with any federal institution or service.

The thing about this ID card is what kind of information will be encoded in it. At a very minimum, name, DOB, sex, ID number, image and address, but also additional information that will likely be included are biometrics with some folks even proposing genetic sequences. However, a major problem with these cards is the inclusion of machine readable technologies included in them that has the very real possibility of making ID theft easier. Additionally, the RealID act requires people to have a physical address. i.e. NO post office boxes unless you are a judge or government agent.

Re:Real ID act

[Threni]

> At the very minimum, there is now the possibility of the federal government
> tracking the movement and ID of any US citizen at any time and preempts judicial
> involvement in the process.

One way of avoiding all this online infringement would be for offline communication. Sort of like how Bin Laden has managed to evade detection for so long. I wonder how long it'll be before communicating offline will be considered suspicious. Already using cash is - in the UK it's been suggested that people carrying more than £1000 on them should be considered suspect. How long before a judge in a trial poses the question "If you weren't engaged in an illegal activity why didn't you just email/text/im/phone the suspect?".

As always, of course, if you're not doing illegal then clearly you have nothing to worry about...

Re:Real ID act

[BWJones]

What about the homeless?

This is a major problem with this legislation as they are likely to become non-persons.

they just realised

[know1]

how well the information gathered by google for advertising would benefit the fbi so decided that the one stop search all method is quite usefull. integrate all their electronic databases into a google search server that's not online with the main net, and you have a powerfull search appliance for government
or something

Re:I wonder what these are for?

[Mysticalfruit]

Don't get your hopes up. The FBI has had some "master" database system in the works for years and it's been a pile of shit. By all accounts it's been a massive waste of money and it hasn't shown any results.

What this sounds like is that they finally realized that they need to build the system from the inside out and not rely on contractors etc. todo the job.

However, I expect much like everything else, once all the people are hired the project plan presented with be full of unrealisic goals and timelines.

FBI hiring marketing students

[TrainingGuy]

There seem to be quite a few examples of the FBI engaging marketing students on 'Projects' NPR was talking about it last week too http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/ a/2005/11/22/state/n081156S81.DTL&type=printable http://www.ur.msstate.edu/news/stories/2004/fbimar ketingplan.asp