The idea is that you get all these different data sources put into a local information grid so that you are a subscriber to the grid. You can call down the information for whatever you need, when you need it.

There is still a requirement to be protective of sources and methods, but we are trying to move the pendulum over closer to the side where, as information is collected, it's available across the coalition battle space to all consumers, all people who have a need.

You can use PDAs for patient information as well, labs and data. We have a system where all the lab results that are in the hospital computer can get hot-synced into your PDA, so that for the patients you're caring for in the hospital you have their potassium, and their creatinine, and their CK-MBs, etc.

Information sharing and being able to communicate with our state and local partners are some of our key functions in the command.

When you combine all [the sources of data] you get something that has a punch to it.

In the old days, a liberal and a conservative (a “dove” and a “hawk,” say) got their data from one of three nightly news programs, a local paper, and a handful of national magazines, and were thus starting with the same basic facts (even if those facts were questionable, limited, or erroneous). Now each of us constructs a custom informational universe, wittingly (we choose to go to the sources that uphold our existing beliefs and thus flatter us) or unwittingly (our app algorithms do the driving for us). The data we get this way, pre-imprinted with spin and mythos, are intensely one-dimensional.