Nebraska DMV Pilot Program for Digital Watermarking
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman announced that the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has been selected to receive nearly $260,000 in grant funding for a pilot program that utilizes the digital watermark embedded in driver licenses and state identification cards to verify the authenticity of each card. “Nebraska has been a leader in adopting security features like digital watermarking in state identification,” Gov. Heineman said. “I am genuinely pleased that we will soon have the ability to help protect against financial fraud and identity theft, prevent access to age-sensitive products and aid law enforcement agencies in homeland security efforts.”
Source: Martha Stoddard, “Computer system to verify ID cards; Nebraska's pilot program also will check driver's licenses,” Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, 24 March 2005: 3B
New Head of Homeland Security in California
Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the appointment of Matthew Bettenhausen as director of the Office of Homeland Security. Bettenhausen has served as director of State and Territorial Coordination for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security since 2003, managing the Department's efforts related to state, territorial and tribal governments including information and intelligence sharing and coordinating funding distribution.
Source: Gary Delsohn, “State gets new anti-terror czar; Governor's pick is no stranger to homeland security agencies,” Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, 24 March 2005: A3
Florida Seeks Federal Funding to Complete FINDER
Florida agencies want $5.1 million in federal funding to complete the statewide rollout of the Florida Integrated Network for Data Exchange and Retrieval (FINDER), a Florida Law Enforcement Data Sharing Consortium (FLEDSC) and University of Central Florida project which began in August 2002 with the goal of providing all 355 law enforcement agencies in the state a way to share critical information in hundreds of different police databases. So far 23 agencies are sharing information over the network and another 22 have signed a memorandum of understanding as a prelude to participating.
Source: Brian Robinson, “Florida cops share data,” Federal Computer Week, 18 March 2005
Dakota County, Minn. Database Project
The Dakota County, Minn. Criminal Justice Information Integration Network (CJIIN), initiated in 1999 as part of the State of Minnesota’s CriMNet project, will integrate information from arrest warrants to orders for protection to fingerprints. GIS computer mapping and online databases are part of the $3 million to $4 million spent so far on the system.
Source: Frederick Melo, “Computers keep cops up to date; Law enforcement agencies use new tools to use and share information,” Saint Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, 26 March 2005: 1B
Nevada Shows Off New Mobile Command Center
The Nevada Department of Public Safety has unveiled its mobile command center, recently acquired through a $400,000 homeland security grant. The mobile center has a complete dispatch center with cellular telephone lines, can digitally record all activities inside and outside the vehicle, and includes a mast video camera able to record locations hundreds of yards away.
Source: Jaclyn O'Malley, “Law enforcement going high-tech,” Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal, 24 March 2005: 1A
DNA Cold Hit Solves 1994 Quincy, Mass. Sexual Assault
Quincy (Mass.) Police arrested a convicted felon on March 11 after a DNA cold hit linked the man to the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl in 1994. The State Police Crime Lab in Sudbury identified the suspect from crime scene evidence recently loaded into its DNA database.
Source: J.M. Lawrence, “DNA spurs arrest in decade-old rape case,” The Boston (Mass.) Herald, 12 March 2005
