The New Orleans district attorney, Jason Williams, recently formed a specialized task force. This comes at a period where there is a constant increase in crime rates and severe understaffing of the police department. This task force relies on cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques to gather essential evidence for combating criminal activities.
The OSINT Task Force
The task force, OSINT Task Force (Open Source Intelligence) focuses on collecting intelligence from publicly available sources. These sources include the social media profiles of criminals. The task force has 11 members. These members are from two organizations. These organizations are Bancroft Global Development, a nonprofit entity, and Tranquility AI. Tranquility AI is a startup with former U.S. intelligence analysts experienced in utilizing AI to track terrorist networks.
Williams emphasized that New Orleans is grappling with a state of terror on its streets. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Williams noted that unleashing an AK-47 on people in a city is an act of terrorism. This holds irrespective of whether these incidents occur on American streets or elsewhere.
According to The Journal, there has not been any official announcement of the task force to the public in New Orleans. According to Williams, the task force has been collaborating with the DA’s office for approximately five months, incurring a pilot cost of $250,000 thus far.
The motivation behind establishing this task force stemmed from a critical need in New Orleans. Currently, prosecutors are grappling with 300 open homicide cases while working alongside the understaffed NOPD (New Orleans Police Department).
Manual Intelligence Analysis
Dave Harvilicz revealed to The Journal that his team is currently conducting a significant portion of their intelligence analysis manually. Harvilicz is the founder of Tranquility AI and a former official in the Energy Department during President Donald Trump’s administration. However, Harvilicz expressed optimism that within the next year, their AI system should be operational. By this time, law enforcement agencies across the nation can enjoy the platform.
The featured image is from WSJ
