A day that began as any normal day before it. People going about their business living their day-to-day lives. That sense of normalcy disappeared in an instant. Lacking that “old normal” from September 10, 2001 represents the biggest change in the last decade.
The events that occurred on September 11 are the primary reason so many of us – the law enforcement and intelligence communities in particular – work so hard to enhance our security capabilities in preventing another attack.
As CEO of i2, I am always humbled by the commitment and dedication of our police officers, intelligence analysts and the men and women serving in uniform around the world. Their sacrifices to make the world more secure never go unnoticed. I’m often asked if we’re safer today than we were on September 11. As a nation, we have come a long way in fixing some of the problems the 9/11 Commission highlighted in its report. For example: READ MORE 
i2 CEO Bob Griffin receives Queen's Award from HM Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Hugh Duberly Esq CBE
Dressed in his traditional royal garb, HM Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Hugh Duberly Esq CBE bestowed the Queen’s Award to i2 for the second year in a row. The Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire County Council, Mark Lloyd, read from the official royal scroll at a ceremony attended by hundreds of i2 employees at the company’s Cambridge, UK headquarters on 15 July.
The event marked a positive milestone in the company’s two decade history providing solutions for law enforcement, national security, defence and the private sector.
The Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire County Council, Mark Lloyd, reads from the the official royal scroll
“Winning this award for the second year running is a fitting tribute to the continuing achievements of the company and our employees,” said i2 CEO Robert Griffin. “The successes of our products in helping our customers collaborate and share information, investigate, predict, prevent and defeat the world’s most sophisticated criminal and terrorist threats has been an instrumental factor in this achievement.”
A day prior, Mr. Griffin and i2 employee Tracey Ellis attended a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace for all the Queen’s Award winners.
When crime and terrorism occur they rarely respect jurisdictional boundaries. To combat these criminals, law enforcement organizations have to be prepared to share information from the bottom-up and top-down. The rise of fusion centers and information sharing initiatives across the nation have paved the way over the years to bridge intelligence gaps and put the right information in the right hands, at their point of need.
At the same time, there are still many challenges to face before information sharing becomes de riguer across local, state, national and international boundaries. To better understand and communicate these issues, i2 hosted an information sharing panel at its Americas User Conference earlier this month.
Panelists included Kathleen O’Toole, the Chief Inspector of the Garda Síochána Inspectorate in Ireland, who was previously the Boston, Mass., Police Commissioner. During her time in Boston, she was critical to the founding of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), one of the nation’s first fusion centers. Deputy Chief Troy Smith of the Grand Junction Police Department in Colorado also offered up his expertise gleaned from his department’s organization in getting Colorado to be one of the states that has successfully established information sharing state-wide. Tim Riley, a current i2 SVP and former CIO for the Los Angeles Police Department, played a large role in establishing information sharing agreements between the LAPD, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and Orange County. Chriss Knisley, the i2 Assistant Vice President for the COPLINK product line was also in attendance to discuss the technological standpoint of information sharing. i2’s Director of Corporate Communications Mitch Derman moderated the session.
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i2 CEO Bob Griffin
With the nation’s debt ceiling looming, it has become clear that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle will not agree to new borrowing unless government spending cuts are included in that authorization. But when it comes to reducing outlays, the programs that make up the lion’s share of spending, and which are also the most contentious – nondiscretionary spending like entitlements and health care – are often put off for another day. If we’re going to have a meaningful, long-term impact on the fiscal well-being of our economy, this can’t continue. Fortunately, we have an option available that can make an immediate difference on one of the biggest budget busters, without eliminating any programs or forcing tough choices – tackling health care fraud by leveraging existing technologies. READ MORE
I agree with the findings of the National Research Council as reported by Kellie Lunney at Government Executive. Analysts are born rather than taught. A subject matter expert can be a very valuable resource for the Intelligence Community (IC), but may not understand how best to analyze related data. Likewise, a true analyst may have no knowledge of the subject matter, but can quickly interpret the data. An analyst in the IC needs to understand how to take many different types of data and apply various analysis techniques. This may be best done in conjunction with a subject matter expert, who would be able to help the analyst understand the data set and suggest what the analyst’s finding could mean.
I also agree with the report’s suggestion that continuous training is essential for analysts. Training helps analysts stay fresh on their game and understand new techniques.
A true analyst is motivated by the work they do. When I performed analysis for the IC, I was excited to be at work because there was always more data to analyze. Visualizing new data and deciphering it with historic data to help fulfill my team’s mission is what brought me into work early each day. And I now get the opportunity to help enhance the work of other analysts in the IC with new techniques such as Social Network Analysis, and with other data sources such as geospatial data and open source.
This post was developed by i2 as an advertorial for the Spring 2011 edition of RUSI’s (The Royal United Services Institute) Defence Systems.
In 2003, Saddam Hussein was on the run. With his chain of command eliminated, traditional intelligence efforts to track him down were failing. Col. James Hickey, U.S. Army, heading the intelligence operation to find Saddam, determined that the reclusive Iraqi dictator only trusted and communicated with family members of his own tribal group. As Hickey said, “We built a fairly elaborate estimate of who Saddam’s supporters were in the area; though it did provide security, it also worked against them. Once we learnt who did what, it allowed us to work against them.”1
Hickey and his team were using a nascent form of Social Network Analysis (SNA). In its purest form, SNA relies on examining the linkages between people and places within a defined group or locality in order to deduce the key decision makers or vulnerable links and where they are located. In this case, it was the pinpointing of Saddam’s chauffeurs that led to his historic capture.
Figure 1
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On the heels of this week’s announcement that i2 and PPM 2000 have entered into a strategic channel partnership agreement, the two companies co-hosted a webinar showcasing the advanced capabilities of their combined offerings: PPM’s enterprise level investigation management solution Perspective and the suite of analysis products from i2, including Analyst’s Notebook and iBridge. 
Led by Brian McIlravey, co-CEO of PPM 2000, and i2’s Mark Massop, Director and Solutions Specialist, the webinar demonstrated how the products significantly reduce the time and effort required of analysts to turn routine data into actionable intelligence – the key to any successful investigation.
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Far removed from the glamour and adrenaline of the game-day atmosphere that will descend upon Cowboys Stadium for Super Bowl XLV this Sunday, a just as intense but completely surreptitious battle is being waged, not on the gridiron, but among the analysts at the North Central Texas and Dallas Fusion Centers. These analysts are charged with helping support the security infrastructure around the biggest spectacle in American sports. Victory for them is to go unnoticed. Their foe, however, comes not in the form of a potent pass rush or disguised defensive scheme, but is itself invisible – a potential threat lurking amid the more than 150,000 people that have started to migrate to North Texas for the big game. 
As the former CIO of the Los Angeles Police Department, I’ve had the privilege of being part of the security infrastructure for many large gatherings – the Academy Awards and the NBA Finals at Staples Center to name a few. The planning and coordination among many law enforcement agencies is critical to the success of securing any event of this scope. READ MORE
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