STATE DEPARTMENT LINK WILL OPEN VISA DATABASE TO POLICE OFFICERS

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 - Law enforcement officials across the country will
soon have access to a database of 50 million overseas applications for
United States visas, including the photographs of 20 million applicants.

The database, which will become one of the largest offering images to local
law enforcement, is maintained by the State Department and typically
provides personal information like the applicant's home address, date of
birth and passport number, and the names of relatives.

It is a central feature of a computer system linkup, scheduled within the
next month, that will tie together the department, intelligence agencies,
the F.B.I. and police departments.

The new system will provide 100,000 investigators one source for what the
government designates "sensitive but unclassified" information. Officials
see it as a breakthrough for law enforcement, saying it will help dismantle
the investigative stumbling blocks that were roundly criticized after the
Sept. 11 attacks.

At the same time, they acknowledge the legal and policy questions raised by
information sharing between intelligence agencies and local law
enforcement, and critics have cast a wary eye as well at the visa database.

One other effect of the new system is that for the first time, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and other agencies linked by it will be able to
send one another encrypted e-mail. Previously, security concerns about the
open Internet often caused sensitive information to be faxed, mailed or
sent by courier.

The changes come as the F.B.I. continues working to upgrade its entire
computer system, which is so antiquated and compartmentalized that it
cannot perform full searches of investigative files. The bureau's director,
Robert S. Mueller III, has said that while the technology easily allows for
single-word searches, for example for "flight" or "school," it is very hard
to search for a phrase, for example "flight school."

For all the ambitious technological proposals being debated in the wake of
the 2001 terror attacks, the new unified system was cobbled from existing
networks and has required little new spending. "These are the networks that
people are already using," said Roseanne Hynes, a member of the Defense
Department's domestic security task force. "It doesn't change jobs or add
overhead."

A primary feature of the system is the State Department's enormous visa
database, whose seven terabytes give it a capacity equivalent to that of
five million floppy disks. Until now, that database has been shared only
with immigration officials.

"There is a potential source of information that isn't available
elsewhere," said M. Miles Matthew, a senior Justice Department official who
works with an interagency drug intelligence group. "It's not just useful
for terrorism. It's drug trafficking, money laundering, a variety of
frauds, not to mention domestic crimes."

Local law enforcement agencies seeking photographs have typically had
immediate access only to their own database of booking photos. But to get
photos of people not previously charged or arrested, an investigator would
make a request to a motor vehicle department or the State Department.

So officials emphasize that the State Department database is not making any
information newly available to law enforcement, simply making such
information easier to acquire. But that increasing ease of accessibility
raises some concern from civil liberties groups.

"The availability of this information will change police conduct," said
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, which has advocated more Congressional oversight of domestic
security operations. "You are more likely to stop someone if you have the
ability to query a database."

Or, as Mr. Rotenberg also put it: "The data chases applications."

Critics also point to what they call the unwelcome precedent of
foreign-intelligence sharing with local law enforcement, even if the
intelligence community's initial contribution to the new system may seem
somewhat innocuous. That component is the Open Source Information System, a
portal where 14 agencies pool unclassified information. Such material in
the new system will includes text articles from foreign periodicals and
broadcasts, technical reports and maps.

Two domestic law enforcement networks are also being tied in: Law
Enforcement Online, a seven-year-old system established by the F.B.I., and
the Regional Information Sharing Systems, six geographically defined
computer networks that help local law enforcement agencies collaborate on
regional crime issues like drug trafficking and gangs.

Becoming part of a collaborative computer network is unusual for the
F.B.I., which has been criticized for its insular nature and technological
sluggishness. As some agents joke, the bureau "likes to have yesterday's
technology tomorrow." Many agents do not have direct access from their
desks to the Internet, because of security concerns. Instead, some field
offices have separate areas that agents refer to as "cybercafes," where
they can log on to the Internet.

The bureau is now engaged in a multibillion-dollar effort to upgrade its
computer system. A recent report by the Justice Department's inspector
general cited mismanagement of the project, though Director Mueller gave
reporters a sunny assessment today, saying among other things that parts of
the upgrade would go online in March as scheduled.

As for the new interagency system, other large security and law enforcement
computer networks are scheduled for integration with it within the next year.

These include an unclassified part of the Defense Department computer
network, as well as the National Law Enforcement Telecommunication System,
which is used to disseminate criminal justice information nationwide.