N-DEx Welcome to the Future

04/21/08

Scattered across the country are more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies—local, state, tribal, and federal—each going about their business of gathering clues, conducting interviews, solving crimes, and generating reports and information.

So the question is: in an age where many crimes cross one or more jurisdictions, how can agencies share their information with each other…not only to catch criminals and terrorists but also to spot crime trends and patterns and help prevent attacks?

After all, beyond a few national criminal justice systems like the National Crime Information Center and the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, most information-sharing between police agencies today is on a case-by-case basis or through local and regional information systems.

That’s now changing, thanks to the Law Enforcement National Data Exchange, or N-DEx.

N-DEx is what you might expect: a national information-sharing system available through a secure Internet site for law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. N-DEx allows agencies to search and analyze data using some powerful automated capabilities, helping to connect the dots between people, places, and events.

Given its experience with such systems, our Criminal Justice Information Services Division in West Virginia was asked by the Department of Justice to develop and maintain N-DEx in close consultation with our law enforcement partners.

Following a successful prototype, we launched the first phase of N-DEx last month to a controlled number of agencies. Right now, the system includes several basic but vital capabilities, including searching and correlating incident/case report information and arrest data to help resolve entities (determining a person’s true identity despite different aliases, addresses, etc.). N-DEx will also create link analysis charts to assist in criminal investigations and identify potential terrorist activity.

Once fully operational and fully deployed in 2010, N-DEx will include a full range of capabilities, including:

Nationwide searches from a single access point;
Searches by “modus operandi” and for clothing, tattoos, associates, cars, etc.—linking individuals, places, and things;
Notifications of similar investigations and suspects;
Identification of criminal activity hotspots and crime trends;
Threat level assessments of individuals and addresses; and
Visualization and mapping features.

All this includes appropriate safeguards to protect privacy and civil liberties. Access to information in N-DEx will be strictly controlled by the law enforcement agency who “owns” the info—each agency decides what data to share, with whom, and under what circumstances. Only a small number of users in each participating agency will be able to access the system.

Each time the system is accessed, a log is generated so administrators can determine who accessed it, for what purpose, and what information was obtained. And note: N-DEx is not a new records system—the only "new" records created will be the links made between information that already exists in law enforcement databases.

“N-DEx is a remarkable tool for investigators to add to their toolbox and represents a real step forward for law enforcement,” says Tom Bush, Assistant Director of our Criminal Justice Information Services Division. “I believe it has unlimited potential for the future and will strengthen the relationships forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement agencies across the country.”

For more information, including a series of fictitious but realistic scenarios that show the capabilities of this tool, see the N-DEx website.

FORMER CONGRESSIONAL AIDE MARK D. ZACHARES PLEADS GUILTY TO PUBLIC CORRUPTION CHARGE

TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

WASHINGTON - A former high-level staffer of the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, the Department of Justice announced today.

Mark D. Zachares, 48, entered his plea to the one-count criminal information today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. Zachares faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and supervised release following his incarceration. As part of a plea agreement, Zachares has agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation into the activities of former Washington, D.C., lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others.

According to plea documents, Zachares met Abramoff in the mid-1990s when Zachares was a government official for the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), then an Abramoff lobbying client. After a failed attempt to secure for Zachares an appointment as head of the Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs in Washington, D.C., Abramoff ultimately helped Zachares secure what became a series of positions as a high-level staffer to the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. Zachares admitted that his job search with Abramoff, which started in late 2000, marked the beginning of a conspiracy that continued through April 2004, wherein Zachares corruptly solicited and received a stream of things of value from Abramoff and his lobbyists in exchange for agreeing to take, and taking, official action to benefit Abramoff, his lobbyists, and their lobbying clients. Zachares left the House committee in November 2005.

According to plea documents, the things of value received by Zachares included tens of thousands of dollars worth of tickets to concerts and sporting events, a luxurious golf trip to Scotland on a private jet, free meals and drinks, and multiple rounds of free golf at Abramoff's country club. Zachares also admitted receiving $10,000 from an Abramoff-controlled entity shortly before he started working on Capitol Hill.

Zachares also admitted that he and Abramoff entered into what they called a "two year plan," whereby Zachares would work as a Capitol Hill staffer to benefit Abramoff's interests, while making political contacts necessary to eventually be hired as a highly-paid lobbyist with Abramoff's firm.

Zachares admitted that the actions he agreed to take, and took, to benefit Abramoff, his lobbyists, and their clients included securing for Abramoff non-public information, referring potential lobbying clients to Abramoff's firm, reaching out to administrative agencies on behalf of Abramoff clients, using his position to exert "payback" on entities that had retained competing lobbying firms, and actively participating in the strategic planning of a new "maritime lobbying practice" at Abramoff's firm, which was explicitly designed to take advantage of Zachares' then-position with the House subcommittee with maritime oversight responsibilities. Zachares further admitted that he intentionally failed to disclose the gifts he had received from Abramoff and his lobbyists, as required in annual financial reports.

The Zachares case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Richard C. Pilger and Matthew L. Stennes of the Public Integrity Section, which is headed by Chief William M. Welch II. The case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The broader investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff is being conducted by a task force including special agents of the FBI, the Department of Interior Office of the Inspector General, the General Services Administration Office of the Inspector General, and the Criminal Investigation branch of the Internal Revenue Service, as well as prosecutors in the Public Integrity and Fraud Sections of the Criminal Division and the Criminal Tax Section of the Tax Division. To date, the investigation has yielded guilty pleas from several defendants, including public officials such as former Congressman Robert Ney and former Deputy Secretary of the Interior James Steven Griles. The investigation has also resulted in the conviction by jury trial of the former chief of staff for the General Services Administration, David Safavian.