The first reaction of many companies to 9/11 was to reorganize around the emerging opportunity. One lesson learned is that moving boxes around organization charts is a whole lot easier than designing, building and delivering new homeland security solutions.
Federal agencies are making little progress on mandates to certify and accredit their information systems, and the poor showing is causing some lawmakers and IT security experts to be leery of agencies' efforts to secure federal IT systems.
As agencies put into place the first blueprints of their IT environments, systems integrators and other contractors face the question of what happens next. Agencies will need help creating more detailed versions of their architectures. SAIC, for example, is already helping DHS with a second version of its plan. But the importance of this work goes well beyond the creation of an enterprise architecture. Contractors now must focus on winning the follow-up -- and possibly more lucrative -- work of implementing enterprise architectures.
Since July 15, Congress has introduced at least eight bills seeking to improve the nation's homeland security operations. This level of activity -- much of it occurring during a congressional recess that began July 26 and will go until Sept. 6 -- is unprecedented, said congressional scholar Norman Ornstein. Washington Technology takes a close look at the proposed legislation and its impact on integrators.
State and local governments want new interoperability standards and additional funding from the federal government to help them improve their ability to gather and analyze terrorist threat information.
Anyone get that plate number? Active Recognition Technologies Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz., has developed software for identifying and comparing license-plate numbers against watch lists.
Football fans at next year's Super Bowl will enjoy the festivities under the watchful eye of Jacksonville, Fla., law enforcement officials thanks to technology from GTSI Corp. of Chantilly, Va.
Football fans at next year's Super Bowl will enjoy the festivities under the watchful eye of Jacksonville, Fla., law enforcement officials thanks to technology from GTSI Corp. of Chantilly, Va.
The Homeland Security Department will complete a project next month that would enable first responders in 10 cities to communicate in the event of an emergency.
The consortium is soliciting technologies from industry, academic institutions and government labs to support the Defense and Homeland Security Departments.
On July 7 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport the nation's first registered travelers sped through screening by placing their fingers on biometric readers in a pilot program launched by the Transportation Security Administration and Unisys Corp.
Pennsylvania officials are struggling to build a pre-Sept. 11, 2001, statewide radio system that must meet the needs of a world radically changed by the events of that day.
The Homeland Security Department has awarded a $30 million contract to a trio of consulting firms to study development of an integrated terrorist screening system.
