National Data Exchange System

| 03.07.2008 | 08:48:396575 |

March 7 '08: Law enforcement agencies across the country are beginning to share and exchange information and data through a new federal network called the National Data Exchange System, the Washington Post reported. N-Dex, as the system is called, is a way for local and state law enforcement agencies to share information with their federal counterparts and remove many of the "top-down" roadblocks facing earlier attempts to share information and communicate, PoliceOne.com reported.

N-Dex was developed by Raytheon and it emphasizes the "local, tribal, county and state agencies that capture and retain the vast majority of data from which 'nuggets of information' can be mined," Policeone.com reported.

The Post reported, "Federal authorities have high hopes for the N-Dex system, which is to begin phasing in as early as this month. They envision a time when N-Dex ... will enable 200,000 state and local investigators, as well as federal counterterrorism investigators, to search across millions of police reports, in some 15,000 state and local agencies, with a few clicks of a computer mouse."

Officials have said that they are concerned about personal privacy and civil liberties being retained: "To allay the public's fears," the Post wrote, "many police agencies segregate information collected in the process of enforcing the law from intelligence gathered on gangs, drug dealers and the like. Projects receiving federal funding must do so."

National Blueprint Tags: Legal & Intergovernmental.