Law enforcement agencies must deal with modernization, collaboration hurdles

Federal law enforcement agencies are struggling to update critical communications technology and to work together to battle a constantly changing threat, agency officials said Wednesday.

"The threat is constantly emerging . . . the enemy is obviously adaptive [and] you always have to be on the cutting edge," said Jesse Levine, acting section chief of the National Threat Center at the FBI. "As the threat changes, we have to be ahead of that."

Speaking at a conference sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association in Rockville, Md., Levine said there is a lack of coordination between federal law enforcement agencies on technology issues. He cited as an example the FBI's public-access tip line created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The phone line has received 2.7 million calls from which agents have collected "a wealth of information that's sitting there," he said. But a lot of the same tips also are reported to other agencies, such as the Homeland Security Department, Levine said, noting they have "struggled" to coordinate their efforts in response to the information.

"What I'd like to see occur . . . is that we get to a point that, based on a common classification level, we can share that information," he said.

Rick Holgate, chief information officer at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agreed there is a need to share information. "Information sharing has certainly progressed very far in the last seven years," he said. "We've seen a lot of progress. . . . I think we still have additional work to do."

The biggest IT challenge ATF is facing is accommodating the needs of its increasingly mobile workforce. According to Holgate, 80 percent of ATF's workforce will at some point work outside the office. "Our challenge is finding the right mix of mobile communications," he said. "[The] challenge is not that the technology doesn't exist, it's finding the right mix of affordable technology."

The FBI faces a similar challenge. Noting that he cannot check his e-mail remotely, Levine said, "I would like to see where we evolve to some sort of trusted application" that allows employees to access e-mail and other critical communications from any location.