25 Apr 07. Reforms ‘boost’ anti-terror fight. Mr Reid said the counter-terrorism effort would be “more agile”. Splitting up the Home Office will greatly improve Britain’s security, Home Secretary John Reid is to say. The new Office for Security and Counter Terrorism will play a “pivotal role” in allowing the home secretary to focus on national security, he will argue. The Home Office is to be split from 9 May, to concentrate on crime reduction, terrorism and mass migration. In a speech Mr Reid will claim that the changes will provide a “more agile” response to the terrorist threat. (Source: BBC)
20 Apr 07. IBM analytics gets DHS SAFETY nod. The Department of Homeland Security has approved analytics software from IBM Corp. for use in fighting terrorism. The IBM Global Name Scoring software has been qualified under the guidelines set by the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002, according to the company. The guidelines act as a seal of approval, assuring the product does what it claims to do. It also protects the vendor from legal liabilities sparked by the product. Global Name Scoring can search for instances of names across different languages. It takes into account “the linguistic, phonetic and specific cultural variation patterns of names,” according to the IBM statement. Thus far, approximately 100 products have been qualified to meet Safety Act guidelines. (Source: GCN)