The completed package will allow about 80 counterterrorism bureau officers to search multiple intelligence databases simultaneously, said Bob Fox, officer in charge of the analytical section in the major crimes division of the counterterrorism bureau. It will provide proactive notifications and e-mail alerts to officers when patterns are identified, he said.

"One of the criticisms in the 9/11 Commission's report is [that] agencies failed to connect the dots [and] bring pieces of information together that possibly would have prevented the 9/11 attacks," Fox said. "[Today] when somebody sits down at a computer and starts trying to check information, there are too many places to look."

The new analysis tools, Fox said, can search multiple sources of information with a single search entry and determine whether "there are any linkages or connections to the information we are looking at."

Today, for example, if a citizen calls the department to report suspicious activity by a neighbor, officers have to search several different data sources for the person's name to see if he is in one of the department's databases, he said. "The more data sources you are required to look at, the more opportunity there is to miss something or forget something," Fox noted.

Kelly Harris, deputy executive director of The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics in Sacramento, said that many local law enforcement agencies are working to automate paper-based internal systems. She said the LAPD's new system will put it "ahead of the curve."