Threat Assessment and Prediction System (TAPS)

The intelligence community suffers from information overload due to a glut of information and a dearth of analysis. With restructuring of the intelligence community, and redirection of information flow to widen dissemination, the amount of information that must be analyzed is increasing rapidly. Analysts supporting Homeland Security must mine not just the usual information sources such as the FBI and NSA, but increasing numbers of important new sources like the INS, all levels of law enforcement, and transportation and communications sources. Even with better training in detecting patterns and indicators across the universe of information, and greater depth of information management experience, analysts still require new and innovative, user friendly, data mining and pattern recognition analytic tools to effectively sort through and analyze this enormous volume of data. In Phase I, CHI Systems developed a prototype Threat Assessment and Prediction System (TAPS) that uses intelligent agents to assist in processing intelligence data and predicting threats for Homeland Defense. This prototype will serve as the basis of the Phase II TAPS effort, which will also include a fully functional mobile command post for demonstration of TAPS in an HLS context, and which can be rapidly transitioned to use by HLS agencies.