Category Archives: Investigation Software

Why is Oregon conducting Intelligence work?

The headline on OPB.org is rather silly, actually….

Why Is The State Of Oregon Conducting Intelligence Work?

Well, you know, because Intelligence work is kind of important. The question isn’t ‘why’… the question is ‘how’. Read on…
criminalThe article is an excellent read, and outlines precisely why compliance with Federal regulation 28 CFR Part 23 is important. The regulation outlines standards for operating federally grant-funded multijurisdictional criminal intelligence systems. It specifically provides guidance in five primary areas: submission and entry of criminal intelligence information, security, inquiry, dissemination, and review-and-purge process.
See a robust 28 CFR Part 23 compliant criminal intelligence system from Crime Tech Solutions HERE.
What follows is a cut-and-paste of the article as it appears originally.
“The Oregon Department of Justice recently commissioned a review into why state investigators were scrutinizing Oregonians who used the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media, including tweets by the head of the agency’s own Civil Rights Division. The resulting report suggests that two employees potentially broke state laws with their searches, but ultimately acted on their own volition.The state investigators who conducted the searches are part of an intelligence unit at the DOJ’s Terrorism Information Threat Assessment Network Fusion Center, part of a criminal intelligence unit at the DOJ. The Fusion Center is designed to prevent criminal activity and monitor public safety and specifically, terrorism threats in Oregon. The center collects data and shares information up and down the chain between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.The Black Lives Matter investigation has raised questions about the role of the Oregon Fusion Center and the cultural competency of its employees. OPB decided to take a closer look at this criminal intelligence unit:Who Works At The Fusion Center, And What Exactly Do They Do?The state-run center has been part of the DOJ’s Criminal Justice Division since 2007 and consists of eight employees, mostly research analysts. Some of those employees also work on other criminal cases. But Fusion Center work is often focused on producing terrorism threat assessments. Analysts research potential threats in advance of major events, such as the governor’s inauguration. Those assessments are used by law enforcement for event preparation and security. In an interview with OPB’s John Sepulvado, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said the center is essential to public safety.

“The Pendleton Round-Up, I know they’ve used the Fusion Center to do threat assessments to ensure safety of those who come to Pendleton for the event,” Rosenblum said. She also cited Oregon’s frequent hosting of international track meets: “I know we have participated there to ensure the safety of the participants and the community.”The Fusion Center also distributes safety and informational bulletins to other law enforcement agencies. Department of Justice spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson pointed to a 2014 example in which a center’s bulletin helped identify a rape suspect. The Port of Portland Police Department requested the Fusion Center distribute information about a rape at a hotel near Portland International Airport. The suspect’s description was distributed statewide and to the National Fusion Center Network, which DOJ officials said led to the identification and eventual arrest of the suspect.
Why Is The State Engaged In This Level Of Security And Intelligence Work?
Oregon’s Fusion Center is one of more than 70 such criminal intelligence centers across the country. President George W. Bush approved the establishment of fusion centers in 2006 with the goal of having local law enforcement and U.S. Department of Homeland Security authorities collaborate and share information. The Salem office is the only one of its kind in Oregon. The Department of Homeland Security describes fusion centers as “information sharing hubs that provide comprehensive and appropriate access, analysis, and dissemination that no other single partner can offer.” “The TITAN Fusion Center is highly regarded throughout Oregon, and highly relied upon by entities throughout the state that have events, for example, where they want to make ensure the safety of the participants,” Rosenblum said.  A core concept of these centers is that employees may have local knowledge or context that federal authorities lack. So, hypothetically, if the Department of Homeland Security learned of a terrorism threat in, say, Eugene, federal investigators could forward that threat to Oregon’s Fusion Center. Research analysts could investigate that threat in partnership with Eugene-area law enforcement officials, and provide local context. “The whole point of a fusion center is to fuse information,” said Portland attorney Sean Riddell, who was chief of the DOJ’s Criminal Justice Division from 2009-2011 and oversaw Oregon’s Fusion Center.

“Say for instance, a law enforcement agency in Medford calls, says ‘We’re looking at this house and this person for trafficking of narcotics, and we don’t want to trip over another agency,” Riddell said. “They’d ask, ‘Is somebody else looking at him?’” The Fusion Center could then examine the files of other law enforcement agencies, such as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. If the DEA did in fact have an open file on that individual, the center could facilitate the sharing of information about the two investigations between agencies.

How Is The Fusion Center Funded?
Five Fusion Center positions are funded by the state legislature in the amount of $1.3 million for the 2015-2017 biennia. The other three staffers are paid via grants or federal money, according to the DOJ.
What Kinds Of Information Can Oregon’s Fusion Center Collect And Analyze?
The Fusion Center has access to an array of criminal and law enforcement records including criminal histories, suspicious activity reports and case records from federal, local and state agencies. They can research individuals, locations or organizations based on “reasonable suspicions.” The center may follow-up on tips and reports that come from individuals as well as other law enforcement agencies.  
Fusion Centers have been criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations for excessive secrecy standards that may limit public oversight, data collection that could threaten individual privacy, and ambiguous lines of authority.
The Oregon center is not allowed to seek out information about an individual on the basis of religious, political, racial or social views, per state law. They’re also not supposed to investigate people based on their participation in a particular non-criminal organization or event.
So it’s possible that Fusion Center investigators violated state law by conducting social media searches for #BlackLivesMatter on Twitter.
Rosenblum wouldn’t speak to whether the DOJ investigators involved broke the law. She said the DOJ plans to require diversity and bias training among staff in the future.
Carolyn Walker, an employment attorney with Portland law firm Stoel Rives prepared the DOJ report looking into the incident. She determined that intelligence unit staff need cultural competency training to help separate potential threats from everyday social media traffic.
The report shows that a DOJ employee was concerned that Erious Johnson Jr., who heads the Oregon Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, “constituted a potential threat to police,” citing several of Johnson’s tweets. One tweet the employee referenced included the lyrics “Consider yourself warned,” and a logo from the 1980s rap group Public Enemy. The investigators apparently didn’t understand the cultural reference.
“The Intelligence Unit as a whole would benefit from clear and consistent leadership and direction,” Walker wrote in her report, “specifically with respect to electronic monitoring of social media.””
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Crime Tech Solutions  is a low price / high performance innovator in crime analytics and law enforcement crime-fighting software. The clear price/performance leader for crime fighting software, the company’s offerings include sophisticated Case Closed™ investigative case management and major case management, GangBuster™ gang intelligence software, powerful link analysis software, evidence managementmobile applications for law enforcement, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and 28 CFR Part 23 compliant criminal intelligence database management systems.

Predictive Policing: Two experts debate

JPGThis is a must-read for law enforcement analysts and investigators. Great article from the Wall Street Journal. Read it HERE.
(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)
 

April 22/16 Five Craziest Crimes of the Week

Enjoy! Here are the five craziest crimesblog-headlines courtesy of Newser and Crime Tech Solutions!
 
(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. We proudly support the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) and International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA). Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)

NBC News gets rare look at NYPD CompStat meeting

Posted by Tyler Wood, Operations Manager at Crime Tech Solutions.
NYPD
NBC News was recently allowed a rare opportunity to sit in on a CompStat (computer statistics) meeting with the New York Police Department and they shared their experience with their viewers.
Watch the short video HERE.
(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. We proudly support the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) and International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA). Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)

Best Practices in Facial Recognition

facialPosted by Tyler Wood, Operations Manager at Crime Tech Solutions.
As a crime analyst or investigator, you or someone you know are often asked to compare images (typically faces) to determine if they match. You may or may not have facial recognition software, but those programs tend to lead to more false positives than anything else.  What’s an analyst to do? Good question…
Crime Tech Solutions – Your Source for Investigation Software – recommends this Facial Identification Best Practices Guideline available from the Facial Identification Scientific Working Group (FISWG). It’s completely free and can be downloaded for printing or ongoing reference.
We hope you find this resource helpful!
(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. We proudly support the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) and International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA). Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensivecrime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)

April 15/16 Five craziest crimes of the week

Enjoy! blog-headlinesHere are the 5 ‘craziest’ crimes of the week , courtesy of Newser and Crime Tech Solutions.
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(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. We proudly support the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) and International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA). Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)
 

Guardian Analytics playing NICE?

power-vector_G1pLm0HO_LWe love the head-on approach here by Guardian Analytics. Competition is good, right?
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/guardian-analytics-launches-nice-actimize-replacement-program-300249818.html
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(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. We proudly support the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) and International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA). Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)

Crime Analysts credited with drastic improvements

Read the news story here.
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(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. We proudly support the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) and International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA). Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)
 

China building big data platform for pre-crime

Re-posted by Crime Tech Solutions – Your Source for Investigation Software
It’s “precrime” meets “thoughtcrime.” China is using its substantial surveillance apparatus as the basis for a “unified information environment” that will allow authorities to profile individual citizens based upon their online behaviors, financial transactions, where they go, and who they see. The authorities are watching for deviations from the norm that might indicate someone is involved in suspicious activity. And they’re doing it with a hand from technology pioneered in the US.
Tiananmen_Square_Beijing_China_1988_1-640x447As Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, the Chinese government is leveraging “predictive policing” capabilities that have been used by US law enforcement, and it has funded research into machine learning and other artificial intelligence technologies to identify human faces in surveillance video. The Chinese government has also used this technology to create a “Situation-Aware Public Security Evaluation (SAPE) platform” that predicts “security events” based on surveillance data, which includes anything from actual terrorist attacks to large gatherings of people.
The Chinese government has plenty of data to feed into such systems. China invested heavily in building its surveillance capabilities in major cities over the past five years, with spending on “domestic security and stability” surpassing China’s defense budget—and turning the country into the biggest market for security technology. And in December, China’s government gained a new tool in surveillance: anti-terrorism laws giving the government even more surveillance powers and requiring any technology companies doing business in China to provide assistance in that surveillance.
The law states that companies “shall provide technical interfaces, decryption and other technical support and assistance to public security and state security agencies when they are following the law to avert and investigate terrorist activities”—in other words, the sort of “golden key” that FBI Director James Comey has lobbied for in the US. For obvious reasons, the Chinese government is particularly interested in the outcome of the current legal confrontation between the FBI and Apple over the iPhone used by Syed Farook.
Bloomberg reports that China is harnessing all that data in an effort to perform behavioral prediction at an individual level—tasking the state-owned defense contractor China Electronics Technology Group to develop software that can sift through the online activities, financial transactions, work data, and other behavioral data of citizens to predict which will perform “terrorist” acts. The system could watch for unexpected transfers of money, calls overseas by individuals with no relatives outside the country, and other trigger events that might indicate they were plotting an illegal action. China’s definition of “terrorism” is more expansive than that of many countries.
At a news conference in December, China Electronics Technology Group Chief Engineer Wu Manqing told reporters, “We don’t call it a big data platform, but a united information environment… It’s very crucial to examine the cause after an act of terror, but what is more important is to predict the upcoming activities.”
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(NOTE: Crime Tech Solutions is an Austin, TX based provider of crime and fraud analytics software for commercial and law enforcement groups. We proudly support the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU) and International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA). Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and criminal intelligence database management systems.)

How big data helps to catch criminals

Posted by Tyler Wood, Operations Manager at Crime Tech Solutions

Big data techniques are used to solve numerous problems: to cure rare diseases, catch poachers in India or find the best time to top trees in New York. Insurance agencies use big data to facilitate more accurate pricing; banks, industrial plants and retail chains — to improve production rates and increase sales; police and security specialists — to catch criminals. And in this post we are going to focus on that last one.
How big data helps to catch criminals
Criminalists are sure that crime has its own patterns, just like any other human activity. While it’s rather hard to forecast individual behavior, analytics can predict reactions of specific human groups with considerable accuracy.
While common users know nothing about the great potential of big data, discuss the benefits of it or get afraid of Big Brother surveillance, analytics are studying this subject deeply to differentiate false signals from really dangerous ones, for example, to prevent financial crimes.
How big data helps to catch criminals
Similar security solutions are already used in police departments of Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles. The last one has already reported significant performance improvement that included a 33% drop in burglaries, a 21% decrease in violent crime, and a 12% reduction in property crime.
High technologies help police to take measures even before someone calls 911. Every bit of data is valuable: photos, updates and check-in statuses on Facebook and other social networks, truancy stats from local schools, medical findings, shopping data, records from public surveillance cameras, etc.
Besides, data analysis helps officials to determine various trends, e.g. the fact that criminals use guns and bullets as a sort of currency. Social networks where criminal themselves upload important data become an invaluable source of information, especially Facebook and Instagram.
Experts say that analytical systems can successfully cope with predicting street crimes, such as auto thefts and homicides. They are also good in forecasting street riots and acts of terrorism.
Innovative technology such as that provided by Crime Tech SolutionsCrime Tech Solutions helped police detect several criminals at large. Analysts combined data from the databases of some 80 towns within Los Angeles County and found out that criminals went underground moving from one police precinct to the next one.
An expert team from the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania developed an algorithm based on a variety of data, including reports from local police precincts. It is used to detect potential victims of a homicide. Police use the data to warn people at risk.
Investigation analytics software can work with a bunch of messy information: DNA data, audio and video recordings from different sources (including records from public surveillance cameras), register license plates to monitor car turnover, and many other global options.
Crime technology solutions have solved a number of other cases: It tracked down hackers who installed spyware on the Dalai Lama’s PC. And in another important case, crime analytics helped to catch a child molester an hour after the abuse. Software detected him on the video recordings taken by public surveillance cameras of New York City.
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Crime Tech Solutions  is a low price / high performance innovator in crime analytics and law enforcement crime-fighting software. The clear price/performance leader for crime fighting software, the company’s offerings include sophisticated Case Closed™ investigative case management and major case management, GangBuster™ gang intelligence software, powerful link analysis software, evidence managementmobile applications for law enforcement, comprehensive crime analytics with mapping and predictive policing, and 28 CFR Part 23 compliant criminal intelligence database management systems.