Your tax dollars at work

[azur@netcom.com (Steve Schear)]

     NIJ Opens Regional Technology Center in Rome:

 Representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice, state and local elected
officials, and Air Force leaders officially opened the National Law
Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center/Northeast (NLECTC) at Rome
Laboratory. The Center will work with law en forcement and corrections
organizations from 16 states --- stretching from Maine to Minnesota --- to
determine operational requirem ents and identify, evaluate, develop,
demonstrate and assess new or improved technology applications to meet
those needs. The Center will also provide assessment of law enforcement
products information, standards and testing. The Northeast NLECTC is
co-located with Rome Laboratory within the Griffiss Business and Technology
Park. Rome Laboratory is the Air Force's research and development
laboratory responsible for command, control, communications, computer and
intelligence technologies.

The laboratory was selected as a regional technology center for the Justice
Department's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in December 1994. It joins
four other regional centers across the country that use existing facilities
and resources to support the NI J's Office of Science and Technology and
law enforcement and corrections organizations.

The Northeast NLECTC will support law enforcement and corrections
activities in the following states: Maine, New Hampshire, Verm ont,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware,
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio Michigan, Wisconsin, Io wa and Minnesota. It
will facilitate technical interchange between prospective users and
developers or technology through regional symposia, exhibitions and
workshops. Participants range from the law enforcement and corrections
community to the Department of De fense and the commercial sector.

Each of the five regional centers has a specific technological focus, with
the Northeast NLECTC capitalizing on Rome Laboratory' s more than 40 years
of expertise developing technologies that provided the vital eyes, ears and
voices for the nation's military. The Rome Laboratory Law Enforcement Team
will be working with the Northeast NLECTC to convert a variety of defense
technologies to the benefit of law enforcement and corrections. At the
current time, efforts are directed at transferring technologies in the foll
owing areas:

*** Sensors: concealed weapon detection, Over-the-Horizon radar, wall
penetration surveillance, and passive location, tracking and tagging.

*** Information Technology: image processing, natural language processing,
and identification using optical correlation.

*** Intelligence Exploitation: speech processing, timeline analysis,
automated firearm identification, and forensic sciences.

*** Communications: applications of high-speed networks, multiband
multifunction radios, and rapidly deployable communications.

*** Command and Control: collaborative planning, visualization techniques,
and Joint Automated Booking Station. Over the past four decades,
researchers at Rome Laboratory have developed a vast array of technological
tools for the military to e mploy in our national defense. Within the
shared framework of command, control, communications and intelligence, many
of those tech nologies apply to the domestic law enforcement mission as
well. As one of NLECTC's regional law enforcement technology centers, Ro me
Laboratory will continue to make substantial contributions to the war on
crime by developing technologies that meet the increasi ng needs of law
enforcement.



  Rome Laboratory Signs Law Enforcement Technology Agreement with City of Rome



Representatives of Rome Laboratory and the City of Rome signed a
Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) to establ ish a
formal working agreement for the purpose of testing and evaluating military
technologies in a law enforcement setting. The C RDA signing was the first
official action following a ribbon-cutting that opened the National
Institute of Justice's Northeast Regi on National Law Enforcement &
Corrections Technology Center at Rome Laboratory. Signing the agreement
were Col. Ted. F. Bowlds, com mander of Rome Laboratory, and Rome Police
Chief Merino J. Ciccone. During the five-year agreement, Rome Laboratory
will supply a variety of technologies to the Rome Police Department. Police
department officers and officials will then test, evaluate and report back
to Rome Laboratory regarding the effectiveness of the test technologies.
Some of the technical tasks to be performed under t he CRDA are enhancing
the computing capability of the Rome Police Department, including improved
access to law enforcement data bas es and access to the World Wide
Web/Internet, as well as synchronization of 911 Emergency System, computer
and alarm time clocks. Rome Police Department personnel will also gain
access to advanced technologies such as the "sniffer alcohol detection
flashlight," night-vision goggles and hand-held digital assistants.


    German Magazine interested in Rome Laboratory's Law Enforcement Efforts

Dr. Frank Ochmann, a science editor for Germany's Stern Magazine, visited
Rome Laboratory to interview engineers and managers involved in law
enforcement technology. The interview was requested in light of the April
issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, which carried an eight-page
article covering a wide variety of C3I technologies developed by the
Laboratory.



    Rome Laboratory Awards Funding to Research  Consortia for Dual-Use
Military and Law Enforcement Applications

ROME, N.Y., June 25, 1996 --- Rome Laboratory has awarded funding totaling
more than $5 million to three research consortia. Combined with investment
by the consortia partners, the total amount of research will approach $17
million. Rome Laboratory will serve as the agent for the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in managing the three research programs
that were instituted under DARPA's Technology Reinvestment Project. The
goal of all three programs is to develop new technologies with applications
to both the military and commercial markets.

The Quick Reaction Spoken Language Translator (QRSLT) Consortium seeks to
develop a product prototype of a hand-held or body-mounted QRSLT that would
allow military personnel in a hostile environment or civilian law
enforcement personnel in an emergency situation to communicate with a
non-English speaking individual using an easily portable, automatic
translation device. The government is contributing $2,374,821 to the
program, with consortium members sharing a cost of $3,632,852. Consortium
members include Language Systems Inc., Woodland, Calif.; Entropic Research
Laboratories Inc., Menlo Park, Calif.; and Eloquent Technology Inc. of
Ithaca, N.Y. Language Systems Incorporated, developed the initial spoken
language translation prototype under the direction and funding of Rome
Laboratory, in support of military requirements. The QRSLT will accept
spoken English input from a military or law enforcement user, translate the
input into Spanish or Arabic, and generate the computer-spoken translation.
The translator will also accept spoken Spanish and Arabic inputs and
translate them into spoken English output. This will be an innovative
advance over currently available "speaking translators," which produce
speech based on typed inputs, which cannot accept spoken input, and which
are not customized for military or law enforcement operations.

The Millimeter Wave Imaging Radar Consortium seeks development of a
suitable technology and effective, affordable products for concealed weapon
detection (CWD) and through-the-wall surveillance (TWS) application ---
well-established objectives for both military operations other than war and
civilian law enforcement agencies. Consortium members include Millimetrix
Corp., South Deerfield, Mass.; Technology Service Corp., Trumbull, Conn.;
and Riverside Research Institute of Lexington, Mass. They will contribute
$2,035,087 to the research program, while the government's share will be
$2,018,491. Military applications of the envisioned technology, in addition
to operations other than war, would include use by military police and
special forces personnel, all weather aircraft operation, shipboard and
airborne missile warning, helicopter obstacle avoidance, battlefield
surveillance, fire control, and missile seekers. Civilian law enforcement
agencies would be able to use the technology in curtailing terrorist acts
and juvenile handgun crimes that frequently involve the use of concealed
weapons, bombs and other contraband that cannot be detected using currently
available technology.

The Speaker Identification for Law Enforcement Consortium will be funded
with $3.2 million, evenly divided between the government and consortium
members T-NETIX Inc. of Englewood, Colo., and Dictaphone of Stratford,
Conn. The goal of the consortium is to transfer previously developed
speaker identification technology into commercial and military
applications. With specific emphasis on minimal size, weight, power and
cost, the technology is envisioned to have widespread civilian law
enforcement surveillance applications.

see <http://www.nlectc.org/E144T127/june.htm>