Police can access information immediately and get more of it than ever before, identify individuals and their records, and, in accident situations, interface swiftly with medical and emergency response teams. Officers using the integrated system have reduced their data collection time by 20 to 50 percent. Best of all, computer in hand, an officer doesn't need to turn his back on the scene to go back to his squad car to pick up responses to his queries for information. From the annual call for proposals through complex planning processes, gatherings of multi-agency teams, coordinated pilots, tracking, encouraging, and weathering the usual ups and downs that accompany experimentation, it's a tall order, indeed. These ongoing efforts are going on all over the country, in different stages of development.
Money never seems to be there when new ideas are ready to fly.
Before the year was up, support for an IT Innovation Fund had been agreed upon. Though some projects affect only one or two federal or federal and local programs, some are crossing international lines. That's the way it's been, for decades. Anyone with an interest in international trade has to deal with as many as 14 different processes, obtain approval from all the agencies involved, fill out duplicative forms. A Customs official should be able to evaluate a shipment before it arrives at the border, where most trucks could be waved on through.