>> My name is Cane Tomblin and I'm the special programs administrator
for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
My department basically takes all of the new ideas for enhancements, new systems,
needs of the investigators or special agents, and puts those through a decision making process
to determine which ones will get resourced and funded and then given
to a project manager to actually execute.
Most of our special projects in some of form [inaudible] relate to how
to get the most relevant, updated information to the law enforcement officer that's on the street
so that when they're pulling over that car, they know exactly who's driving it,
what their rap sheet, if they're wanted for any warrants, if they are a registered sex offender
or predator, all those kinds of pieces of information.
So if you think about the time delay between pulling someone over for a broken taillight
and having to know all that vital information prior to engaging
with that individual, it's a pretty serious business.
And the data that we can provide and that officer can really make the difference
between potentially life and death.
But it's still that moment of when you pull that individual over,
you have no idea what situation you're stepping into.
We really do our absolute best to get as much information
from the right subject matter experts as we can before we make any kind of decision
to start a new project or program or stop a project or program.
And of course, all that gets tied to the finite budget that a state agency has.
So we want to make sure that we're doing the most good for the taxpayer dollar.
So I've done two deployments to Iraq and you know, I got to come home.
So I went there, I was prepared for the high threat environment, via training whatever,
you went through the high-threat environment, and then you kind of got to come home and relax
and you're like back in the United States.
Well for law enforcement officers, that's every day.
They're always going into a high-threat environment.
So any information that we can give to them in a timely manner is vitally important.