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GCN Home > 04/28/03 issue

First responders get homeland security network

By Wilson P. Dizard III, GCN Staff

The Justice Department and FBI are expanding their sensitive but unclassified law enforcement networks to share homeland security data across levels of government.

When fully deployed, one network—the Antiterrorism Information Exchange (ATIX)—will provide law enforcement agencies at all levels access to homeland security information. Law enforcement agencies also can use ATIX to distribute security alerts to private-sector organizations and public officials who lack security clearances.

The second network, the Multistate Antiterrorism Regional Information Exchange System (Matrix), will give crime analysts working on terrorism investigations a tool to quickly check a broad range of criminal records maintained by federal, state and local agencies.

ATIX and Matrix will weave local, state and federal law enforcement data via the Regional Information Sharing System.

The regional secure intranet, known as riss.net, relies on servers at six hub centers serving the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories, Australia, Canada and England.

ATIX users will include a broad array of public safety and infrastructure organizations, including businesses that have homeland security concerns and duties, said Richard H. Ward III, deputy director of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance.

The bureau’s Justice Programs Office oversees riss.net, which also has a RISS Directors National Policy Group made up of the executive directors of the six regional centers.

Justice has rolled out ATIX to users in 14 states so far and expects to extend it to 26 more over the next two months. Lack of funds prevented nationwide deployment this year, Ward said. “In 2004, we hope to do the rest of the states,” he said.

The department included ATIX costs into its 2003 spending for riss.net, which runs about $25 million annually, Ward said.

ATIX users have access to a secure e-mail via riss.net, which provides an antivirus and spam filter. The FBI and the Homeland Security Department will use the e-mail system to deliver alerts to ATIX users based on different criteria.

ATIX planners also will develop secure Web sites to post homeland security information and create collaborative bulletin boards where participants can exchange homeland security information.

Justice has asked each state to designate an agency responsible for providing a list of potential ATIX users. Riss.net managers will grant ATIX access levels to users on a need-to-know basis. Federal officials will be able to send ATIX alerts to organizations by geographic location, organizational activity and user status, said M. Miles Matthews, senior management counsel in Justice’s Counterdrug Intelligence Secretariat.