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9/11 Commission Report
Recently, the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a panel created by the
President and Congress under Public Law 107-306, was issued providing the recommendations for a global strategy for addressing,
preparing for, and combating terrorism. This report sheds light on a number of inefficiencies and problems pervasive throughout
the government that collectively contributed to the intelligence failures that led up to 9/11. As expected, there was a strong
emphasis on the topic of information sharing.
It has been almost three years since the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred and still very little progress has
actually been made to date with respect to government agencies sharing data in any formalized or automated fashion. As stated
on page 88 of the report "…even the best information technology will not improve information sharing so long as the intelligence
agencies' personnel and security systems reward protecting information rather than disseminating it." Change is forthcoming with
President Bush already announcing some of the recommendations being enacted including the appointment of a National Intelligence
Director and the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center.
VAI has long been an advocate of information sharing and both our tools (DIG and VisuaLinks) were designed (pre 9/11) to support
enterprise-level support for multi-database access using secure protocols and controls. VAI technologies are able to provide the
necessary capabilities to support "…a network-based information-sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries"
as stated as one of the primary recommendations on page 400 of the report. In fact, VAI tools are in use today providing select
agencies with the ability to securely share information.
The report also makes reference to the use of a decentralized network model for sharing information among different agencies and indirectly references
the document Creating a Trusted
Network for Homeland Security, created by the Markle Foundation. Importantly, this document brings to light that many of the
key participants are not from the federal government - rather they are from state and local governments or from the private sector.
Continued on VAI News page
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 VAI works closely with our client community to ensure they are maximizing their results using our technology suite.
Recently, we have learned that our products have played a major role in a wide number of active cases and investigations
(across several different agencies) that have led to a significant number of arrests and/or seizures. Often these cases
involve multiple jurisdictions, large volumes of data, and in some cases, an international component. VAI technologies are
able to pull together all the information to present a concise and well-formatted view of the criminal activity. We are
always pleased to learn about these efforts and are proud our technologies are making a difference within the community.
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Although there is still much work to be done before VisuaLinks 4.0 is ready for an official release, beta versions have been
distributed to select partners and clients to test the new server-side APIs (application programming interfaces). The APIs
are providing the necessary interfaces to integrate VisuaLinks more seamlessly into large programs and applications.
Additionally, the APIs provide system integrators and partners more control over what types of data are presented.
Check out the VisuaLinks News page
to get a quick peak at some of the newest VisuaLinks 4.0 features. |
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Our DIG development team has been working non-stop to make the next release of DIG the most robust and flexible version to date.
This release will include a number of new features - some of which we've discussed over the last couple issues (ChoicePoint,
RetrievalWare) and some of which we haven't mentioned yet. Visit the DIG News page to see the latest addition to upcoming release -
the Qsent .Net Data Provider coupling. |
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The Visual Analytics Partner Program is growing with the addition of several new companies and technology providers. VAI would like to welcome the following resellers: Magnify, Inc, The Analysis Corporation (TAC), and Text Solutions, Inc. (TSI).
In addition to ChoicePoint, VAI has started work with LexisNexis and Qsent on creating direct couplings to their data repositories to better serve the marketplace. Read more about these companies in the VAI News.
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"We are generating VisuaLinks diagrams with each case we send out for investigation.
It is really a great system that saves us a lot of time."
- Government Analyst
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