provide for the common defense

Walid Pares describes "A failure of Academia" via Instapundit. A failure of academia, that is, moreso than a "failure of imagination" as termed by the 9-11 commission.

Brendan Mitiner describes a lack of spies, a lack of sharing intel and "group think" that may not improve with the implementation of the 9-11 commission's recommendations of another layer of bureacracy.

There obviously were multiple failures. But another important failure was right at our fingertips--a failure to implement technical imagination. From page 8 of the 9-11 report's executive summary:

Operational Opportunities
...
--not watchlisting future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar...
-- not sharing information linking individuals in the Cole attack to Mihdhar;
...
--not discovering false statements on visa applications;
--not recognizeng passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner;
--not expanding no-fly lists to include names from terrorist watchlists;
--not searching airline passengers identified by the computer-based CAPPS screening system;
...(emphasis added).

This seems to be vindication of the Department of Homeland Security's past and present efforts to pass and implement linked information-sharing databases and informational searches incorporated into programs like CAPPS I, CAPPS II, TIA, and others, including the Patriot Act.

So why the problem implementing these programs? Apparently not because of a failure of technical imagination. More likely it was a failure to implement these measures of technical imagination. It seems that privacy advocates and bad publicity succeeded in getting programs like CAPPSII mothballed.

Will this vote of confidence by the 9-11 Commission for these programs help to push them through? It doesn't seem likely in a political year.

FrontPage Magazine tackles critics of improved security measures.

Immediately after 9/11, politicians and pundits slammed the Bush administration for failing to “connect the dots” foreshadowing the attack. What a difference a little amnesia makes. For two years now, left- and right-wing advocates have shot down nearly every proposal to use intelligence more effectively—to connect the dots—as an assault on “privacy.” Though their facts are often wrong and their arguments specious, they have come to dominate the national security debate virtually without challenge. The consequence has been devastating: just when the country should be unleashing its technological ingenuity to defend against future attacks, scientists stand irresolute, cowed into inaction.

This sounds interesting:

The Department of Homeland Security has created the National Visual Analytics Center in order to increase our capabilities to discover and predict terrorist activities,” said Charles McQueary, under secretary for science and technology. “Being able to collect, combine and analyze vast amounts of information plays an ever-increasing role in preventing terrorist attacks in the United States, and visual analysis of this information is a crucial tool.

And the uses aren't just for counter-terrorism. New technologies for life-saving drugs are included, as well. And for the ACLU afficionados, the Center has your concerns covered, as well.

And this:

Analytic Services Inc. was chosen to operate the new Homeland Security Institute, the Homeland Security Department’s first federally funded research and development center, or FFRDC.
...According to the department’s Science and Technology Directorate, the contract is worth up to $130 million over five years to Arlington, Va.-based Analytic Services, also known as Anser.

The Homeland Security Institute becomes the federal government’s 37th FFRDC. It will independently assess, analyze and mitigate security threats, vulnerabilities and risks, focusing on issues where scientific, technical and analytical expertise is required.

Steady progress in DHS information database "gelling":

ORLANDO, Fla. - Information sharing networks being developed by the Homeland Security Department and the law enforcement and intelligence communities are beginning to provide overlapping capabilities, especially at the secret level.

DHS officials speaking at the Information Sharing for Homeland Security symposium here said they plan to expand the Homeland Security Information network, launched in February, to the secret level by the end of this year.

The system now operates at the sensitive but unclassified level.

Meanwhile, the intelligence community plans this year to expand the TTIC Online network, now operating at the top secret level, to the secret level. That network draws its information largely from the interagency Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

The HSIN, also known as the Joint Regional Information Exchange system, is not yet connected to the Law Enforcement Online/Regional Information Sharing System/Open Source Information system network, which operates at the sensitive but unclassified level.

Until this happens--at the law enforcement level--the system will need to continue "gelling."

The Washington Post provides a rare piece that suggests good progress at DHS:

The U.S. intelligence community has made immense strides in detecting terrorists by scrutinizing their passports and other travel documents, and U.S. immigration officials at airports and border posts need to be trained in these arcane spotting techniques, the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks concluded in its report released yesterday.
...Officials, for example, study the markings on foreigners' passports, analyze the travel patterns of extremists through lands such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and keep abreast of the activities of passport forgers.

But more work needs to be done--the report suggested massive expansion of the program. It already seems underway:

In other recommendations, the commission praised a Homeland Security program called U.S. VISIT, which collects information about some foreigners entering the country on visas. It said the program, which stores people's pictures and two fingerprints, should be expanded to cover millions of other foreign visitors, and that this data should be integrated into a larger information network.
...The Homeland Security Department recently requested bids for a company to create a prototype U.S. passport with biometric features, along the lines of one of the commission's recommendations. U.S. officials already have asked other nations to create such passports.

Still, the programs have high hurdles to pass--the ACLU and other critics of necessary security measures, mostly in the press. Hopefully the program will not meet the fate of CAPPSII--deep sixed until after the election.