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CIA, NSA Adopting Web 2.0 Strategies Posted: 11 Mar 2009 11:55 PM PDT While the United States intelligence community may have gotten a lot of publicity for its Wikipedia-like Intellipedia Web site, agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency are ramping up their use of other social and Web-inspired software as well. Intellipedia has been a success — with 830,000 pages, it’s the crown jewel of the intelligence community’s proof that information sharing is better in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — but Michael Kennedy, director of enterprise solutions for the intelligence community, said the government can’t rest on its laurels. He admits criticism that Intellipedia has matured, and while it remains a centerpiece, he said the government also needs to keep moving onto the next big thing. “We don’t know what the next great tool is going to be for the users,” he said during a panel discussion Tuesday at the FOSE conference in Washington, D.C. “We just know there will be one very soon, and we want to be there, whatever it is.” For example, intelligence agency employees now exchange about 5 million daily instant messages via Jabber and IBM Sametime. A search engine based on Google technologies has indexed 92 million documents and handles 2 million queries every month. A new site allows employees to share and analyze photos and videos of events like a test last year that destroyed a failing satellite with a missile. This year, the community is working on a number of new initiatives, such as ramping up search capabilities. For example, the agencies are now working with a vendor — Kennedy wouldn’t say who — that provides it with the ability to draw a picture and then search for similar images. Semantic search capabilities to analyze sentiment and summarize documents are coming soon, too, but for now Kennedy and his colleagues aren’t yet confident in the ability of commercial tools on which it will rely. Another key focus for the intelligence community’s social and information-sharing initiatives this year is a common one: SharePoint. “It’s one of those products we can’t get by without anymore,” Kennedy said, adding that SharePoint is used for everything from unclassified to highly classified intelligence. Source This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information. Share this post

Domestic Terror Threat Growing, Senate Committee Warns Posted: 11 Mar 2009 11:46 PM PDT There is an increasing threat of homegrown terror stemming from segments of a deeply isolated and alienated Somali-American community, a U.S. Senate committee hearing concluded Wednesday. The hearing, conducted by the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee, focused on the attempted recruitment of young Somali-American men by al-Shabaab, “a violent and brutal extremist (Somali) group” with significant ties to al Qaeda, according to the U.S. State Department. "Over the last two years, individuals from the Somali community in the United States, including American citizens, have left for Somalia to support and in some cases fight on behalf of al-Shabaab,” noted the committee’s chairman, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Connecticut. Al-Shabaab — also known as the Mujahedeen Youth Movement — was officially designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in March 2008. The hearing highlighted the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old Somali-American who had been radicalized by al-Shabaab in his adopted home state of Minnesota before traveling to Somalia and blowing up himself and 29 others in October. The idea that Ahmed was radicalized in the United States raised red flags throughout the U.S. intelligence community. The incident — the first suicide bombing by a naturalized U.S. citizen — was the “most significant case of homegrown American terrorism recruiting based on violent Islamist ideology,” Lieberman said. “The dangers brought to light by these revelations is clear: radicalized individuals trained in terrorist tactics and in possession of American passports can clearly pose a threat to the security of our country,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. via Domestic terror threat growing, Senate committee warns - CNN.com. This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information. Share this post

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