Thread: DHS Special Report | Who's Who at the Border

http://www.gcn.com/print/25_16/41078-1.html


DHS Special Report | Who's Who at the Border
06/19/06
By RobThormeyer,


Targeting center system applies modeling technology to data culled from multiple agencies

As a car creeps toward the U.S. border, a computer, gathering data via cameras and using modeling technology, sends an alert to a patrol officer.
Drawing on information from multiple Homeland Security Department agencies— data such as the car’s make, model, license plate, location and time of day— the software predicts whether the car is likely to contain undocumented persons or counterfeit goods hidden in the trunk.

The information is quickly processed and presented to the border guard, who can then determine—before the car reaches the gate—whether to take further action based on the analysis.

This predictive modeling technology, which DHS’ Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center is still rolling out, can lead to the arrest of undocumented persons and seizure of illegal goods at land borders. Officials declined to discuss specifics about the modeling technology.

Casting a wide net
DHS officials say the scenario is one of many examples of how the agency, despite its struggles, has quietly put together a wide-reaching net of screening and targeting programs, working not only within its several internal organizations—such as CBP, the Coast Guard and Citizenship and Immigration Services—but with other agencies such as the Justice and State departments.

Through internal programs such as the targeting center, the Automated Commercial Environment, and the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator System, and intergovernmental initiatives such as Justice’s Terrorist Screening Center, DHS is breaking down the stovepipes of its agencies, the officials said. And it is also helping remove long-standing bureaucratic silos that have, in the past, prevented intelligence and security agencies from communicating.

“We’ve made unbelievable strides ... and our ability to team with other agencies has really grown exponentially,” said Charles Bartoldus, executive director of national targeting and screening for CBP.

Scott Hastings, CIO of U.S. Visit, agreed: “We are seeing very large initiatives taking big chunks out of the connect-the-dot problem.”

For example, two DHS flagship programs— U.S. Visit and ACE—operate on the same network and share the same infrastructure and routers. A separate initiative, the Terrorist Screening Center, houses employees from several different agencies. And some officials, such as Bartoldus, serve on steering committees for other projects. In Bartoldus’ case, he is a member of ACE’s board of directors.

“This is really the leader as far as information sharing,” said Donna Bucella, director of TSC. “This is one place where the rubber meets the road and is useful.” In practice, the targeting center and the Terrorist Screening Center offer perhaps the best models of technology and interoperability coming together.

NTC, established just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and later rolled into DHS, targets suspicious people and cargo entering and leaving the country. It uses data gathered from CBP’s cargo and trade processing system, the Automated Commercial Environment, U.S. Visit and the National Counterterrorism Center’s classified Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment.

The information is fed into NTC’s Automated Targeting System, a program responsible for risk assessment at the borders. With predictive modeling technology, the center’s officials use the targeting system to determine if a car trying to cross the border likely contains undocumented people or a shipment coming into a seaport contains counterfeit goods.

Bartoldus expects ATS-Land to finish its deployment to all land border points in the country by the end of June. The agency also is launching a pilot at seaports this summer that will track counterfeit goods coming into the country, he said.

“With predictive modeling, the computer is not giving me the data to analyze. It is the computer looking at the data and saying, ‘This pattern follows a pattern I’ve seen before,’ ” Bartoldus said.

If the pattern warrants further attention, NTC officials contact other border security and law enforcement personnel, such as the Transportation Security Administration, to determine the next course of action, Bartoldus said.

“We’re all working on the same issues at the same time, but it’s a clear handoff,” he said.

One link in the communications chain is the Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the government’s consolidated terrorist watch list.

TSC director Bucella said her shop uploads biographical information from multiple agencies— the Defense Intelligence Agency, CIA, State Department, FBI and DHS—and places it into the Terrorist Screening Database.

“We are a clearinghouse,” Bucella said. “What we do is ... connect up the diplomatic world, the international intelligence community, the law enforcement community, and our state and locals. Think of us as a facilitator.”

Data collections
The list Bucella’s shop maintains is more a collection of “supported systems”—various watch lists and databases including U.S. Visit, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, and the State Department’s Consular Lookout and Support System.

The screening center also has access to the National Counterterrorism Center’s classified Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database that contains names and biographical information of suspected international terrorists.

“While our database is a list of just names and identities, we also have the supported systems to be able to dive into those to find out ‘Why is that person on the list?’ and ‘Is the person that’s currently being confronted and encountered ... in fact a person on the watch list?’ ” she said.

The list is used when, say, a person applying for a visa overseas triggers a hit on State’s Consular Lookout and Support System. The consular official is told to contact TSC to determine whether that person is actually the person on the watch list and should be denied entry, Bucella said.

Because TSC draws on information from so many agencies, the office is set up like a central repository, with several agencies loaning staff to run the operation.

For example, although Bucella is an employee of the Transportation Security Administration, she reports to FBI director Robert Mueller III. Other staff members come from DHS, State, Justice, Treasury and, briefly, the Postal Service.

“This is the theory I use: Why don’t you come join us? We are the U.S. government, and we’re trying to coordinate the government’s approach, not one agency’s approach,” she said. “Let’s see if it’s a useful tool to have somebody here and also if we need a relationship. ... Everybody walks in here and they become a screening center employee. They bring their expertise from different agencies, but their mission is the Terrorist Screening Center.”

And while TSC is the repository, the agencies and programs it feeds also adhere to the intergovernmental approach that screening and targeting demands.

DHS’ U.S. Visit, a flagship program launched by former secretary Tom Ridge, uses fingerprint data collected by CBP and consular officials overseas to determine whether certain people attempting to enter the country are using fraudulent identities or could be on various terrorist watch lists.

The program also is trying to keep better track of visa overstays and whether visitors are actually leaving the country when their visas expire.

The system runs on the existing Automated Biometric Identification System fingerprint database, known at IDENT, which currently collects two fingerprint images. DHS checks and verifies visa-seekers’ fingerprints against IDENT and databases maintained by the FBI and others to ensure that the person is not on any terrorist or criminal watch lists.

“Data sharing and interoperability are key drivers for this program,” Hastings said. “We see ourselves as a transformation program.”

The program “extends our borders” to the overseas consular offices, he said, because it gives DHS officials a prescreening tool that prevents an individual on any terrorist or criminal watch lists—once his identity has been verified— from entering the country.

Although he could not provide specifics, Hastings said the program has prevented murderers, pedophiles, drug traf- fickers and immigration violators from crossing the border.

U.S. Visit also provides data to DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement of- fice on people who may have overstayed their visa dates, Hastings said. “For the first time, we’ve taken enforcement actions on overstays based on our system,” he said. “That’s a pretty powerful indication” of U.S. Visit’s reach.

Checkout trouble
But here is where U.S. Visit runs into criticism, because it has no way to tell when or if people have left the country.

Hastings admitted the exit program still has its work cut out for it: Although there are 14 pilot programs at exit points throughout the country, it is still little more than an honor system.

“We’re fully aware of the shortcomings, and there are some issues DHS is looking at seriously” to bolster the project, Hastings said.

At this point, the pilot system consists mainly of an unmanned U.S. Visit kiosk at an airport or another exit location where a person signs in (or perhaps more appropriately, checks out) and, presumably, leaves the country.

“The only way you know where people are is if they comply with” the exit program, said Rich Pierce, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union for border security guards. “Unless someone has been arrested and fingerprinted previously, we can’t find them.”

Jim Stolarski, program manager at Accenture Ltd.’s Smart Border Alliance, which manages U.S. Visit, said that although improvements are necessary, the pilots have provided invaluable lessons going forward.

“The current solution, while imperfect, is an improvement over nothing,” Stolarski said. “If we wait for the perfect solution, what happens between then and now?”

Most officials and homeland security experts agree that, at this moment, the infrastructure for an effective exit system just does not exist.

And with DHS secretary Michael Chertoff focusing more on such new programs as the Secure Border Initiative, some experts wonder if U.S. Visit will ever have an effective exit program.

“The biggest challenge with an exit/entry system isn’t the technology,” said one industry official. “The problem is the amount of money and time that’s going to be required to have an effective program.” For instance, the source said, the systems must be durable enough to withstand hostile conditions in the field.

GAO: Watch the exits
The Government Accountability Office has pointed to the program’s shortcomings including its failure to find a sustainable exit system.

“They do have an entry and pre-entry program,” said Randy Hite, GAO’s director for IT architecture and systems issues. “They’ve created a deterrent effect for keeping terrorists out of the country, and that’s good. But has it accomplished everything? No.”

In particular, GAO in February found that U.S. Visit has yet to implement a system security plan or a privacy impact statement—recommendations the congressional watchdog agency made more than two years ago. Also, GAO concluded that DHS has not added cost-effective controls to address risk and weigh the project’s value.

As a result, the verdict on U.S. Visit is “a mixed bag,” Hite said. “There’s examples of success, and there’s examples of where they haven’t met commitments.”

Despite valid criticisms, U.S. Visit and ACE have achieved some real success, at least in part because they share the same infrastructure, and many of the same principals and information.

This interoperability has resulted in the apprehension of suspected terrorists and criminals, while at the same time maintaining a constant flow of traffic and trade at the borders, officials said.

“We give ourselves a pretty good report card,” Hastings said.

Communications between the several agencies, “something that used to be very complex, is resolved within minutes because everyone knows their roles,” said CBP’s Bartoldus.


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jimpasz,

Do you get the same creepy feeling I do, when I see this type of technology? I'm sure the military and other alphabet agencies, have all kinds of spyware, that the average citizen has no clue about. And as a person, who tries to be a good citizen and NOT break the law, I'd always agreed with the statement, that we hear over and over again..."If you're not breaking the law, you have nothing to fear."

As a car creeps toward the U.S. border, a computer, gathering data via cameras and using modeling technology, sends an alert to a patrol officer.
Drawing on information from multiple Homeland Security Department agencies— data such as the car’s make, model, license plate, location and time of day— the software predicts whether the car is likely to contain undocumented persons or counterfeit goods hidden in the trunk.

While the idea, that our BP folk, could more easily stop illegal aliens, including terrorists, appeals to me. (This is the pull of national id)

But then I think, what if the globalists were looking for me?

“This is really the leader as far as information sharing,” said Donna Bucella, director of TSC

And now you just shared it with the smugglers, drug dealers and Mexican mafia, if they didn't know this already.

All they have to do now is switch the kind of cars they use.

Why does the press lay all the cards on the table, are they that stupid?