We Need a Google Approach to Terrorist Intel

All of the fallout from the failed Underwear Bomber has focused the nation on why the intelligence the U.S. agencies gather isn't shared well. The phrase "connect the dots" comes up again and again -- why can't agencies add piece upon piece, until it adds up to "Tap this guy on the shoulder."

I think we need to enlist Google's help, assuming they still adhere to the policy "Don't be evil." What do I mean by that? I'm not talking about gathering intelligence information from the World Wide Web using google searches. I'm talking about how we assimilate all the information we do gather into a "squishier" pile for our human agents to see and use. It should be on a screen that works like a web browser, on a web page.

Information is messy. We need a search screen that works just like Google -- if a suspicious piece of information comes in about a person (or anything!), you enter it into something like a Google search box. Enter some guy's name. At that moment, the system should return ALL the information we have that might be relevant, on a big dashboard screen. And everything that is up there is hyper-linked, so agents can just keep clicking.

How many times have you googled something, spelled it wrong, and had Google tell you "did you mean leather hotpants?" In a similar way, the database tool should match up information that is not quite the same spelling, but a human would spot it as suspiciously similar if the information was put on screen.

Every piece of information that ever gets learned about the roughly 500,000 "persons of interest" in the world would just be entered in a big "blogosphere," secret to the world, but piped into the online computer that any friendly agent can Google search. If something happens and you're not sure what to make of it, you don't have to figure what file it goes under, what computers it should be entered into, or what significance it has (at least a final call). You do an intel blog entry, write "Joe Blow was in the Krakbackistan Airport." Or whatever is observed.

This may sound simple, but I mean this search tool pulls info from every intelligence database we have access to -- CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, UK -- whatever we've got.

People can't "connect dots" until those dots appear in front of their eyes. The eyes are powerful wires to the brain. And only a human mind can use fuzzy logic to to discern when it's time to pick up that phone and ask more questions.