Homeland Security – Information Sharing

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Identification of major problems or weaknesses
Enabling Legislation and Executive Directives
Achievements
Analysis and recommendation
Bibliography

Introduction

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 was passed to protect Americans after September 11, 2001, through information sharing between various security agencies, better vigilance in the form of laws, and better enforcement of these laws. The Homeland Presidential Directive-3 (HSPD-3) signed by President Bush in March of 2002 says that the nation needs a Homeland Security Advisory System to provide an effective means “to disseminate information regarding the risk of terrorist acts to Federal, State, and local authorities and the American people”. Thus, the focus of the Homeland Security Act was the dissemination of information among the Federal, State, and Local authorities and the public. With the passage of the Homeland Security Act, twenty-two current agencies have been brought together under one new department, the Department of Homeland Security. The Homeland Security Act 2002 is charged with a threefold mission of protecting the United States from further terrorist attacks, reducing the nation’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimizing the damage from potential terror attacks and natural disasters (Haddow et al, 2007).

Identification of major problems or weaknesses

One of the major flaws in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 is the heavy reliance upon information technology to carry out mission-critical tasks and provide other citizen services (Thaler and Bea, 2005). Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) has raised concerns regarding the structure of the new huge organization formed by the DHS Act 2002. Under the DHS Act, almost 200,000 government employees working in two dozen federal agencies for decades, now find themselves in a new organization called the Department of Homeland Security with a new culture and consequently face role conflicts (Thaler and Bea, 2005). Due to such communication and role conflicts, information sharing between agencies within the DHS has not been easy. The DHS has no direct access to information neither does the FBI or CIA comes within its organization. Hence, DHS has to rely on outside agencies such as the FBI and CIA for intelligence gathering and analyzing information. Moreover, intelligence cannot be shared between federal agencies in and outside of the DHS because their computer systems are not compatible with each other. The DHS also faces the problem of sharing information in checking the passengers and foreigners entering the United States as nine different federal agencies inside and outside the DHS collect and create separate terrorist watch-lists: TSA, CIA, FBI, State Department, Customs, and Border Patrol Protection’s Interagency Border Inspection System. Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU’s Washington office has criticized the bill for permitting DHS to withhold “critical infrastructure” information from public scrutiny (Harper, 2003). Murphy says that this might make criminals out of officials who blow the whistle on threats to public health or private sector incompetence. The Center for Democracy and Technology finds that the legislation greatly “undermines privacy online” through the Cyber-Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) (Harper, 2003). The act has also sparked protests over its indemnification provision that restricts citizens from filing class-action lawsuits against government contractors, such as vaccine-manufacturer Eli Lily and Co. (Harper, 2003).

Enabling Legislation and Executive Directives

Homeland Security Act of 2002 establishes DHS as a cabinet agency, sets up the five directorates of DHS, transfers responsibilities from other agencies, migrates some agencies to DHS, allows DHS to adjust human resource rules, lays the groundwork for intelligence fusion center.
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3: Creation of Advisory System 2002 – by setting up a system of threat conditions; i.e., low = green, guarded = blue, elevated = yellow, high = orange, and severe = red Depending on the risks to national security at a particular point in time, the Homeland Security system would provide warning in the form of threat levels and federal departments and agencies would implement a corresponding set of protective measures so that there would be heightened response capability when the risk is high. This is the direct outcome of information sharing between various agencies in the DHS.
H.R.3158 (2003) amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to establish a task force that will have access to information regarding terrorist threats and vulnerabilities of the country. It further authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to make grants to State and local governments.

Achievements

The Homeland Security Act created the Department of Homeland Security in November 2002. The new department consists of four sub-agencies one of which is the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate which oversees the collection and distribution of information. (Tillman, 2003). The two main intelligence organizations – the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – are excluded from the DHS by some parts of the FBI such as the National Infrastructure Protection Center is included with the Information Analysis and Infrastructure directorate of the DHS. This directorate is responsible for collecting and analyzing information regarding the threat of terrorist attacks from both public (local, state, and federal) and private sector sources. “The directorate will first assess the nation’s critical infrastructure and key resources for vulnerabilities, and then develop a comprehensive plan for securing both the infrastructure and resources from various means of attack” (Tillman, 2003, p. 1). The directorate also makes sure that the information is kept secure and makes recommendations to the government for new policies in the context of information sharing (Tillman, 2003). Fusions centers have been formed to exchange information and intelligence regarding crime and terrorism by merging data from a variety of sources.

Fusion centers are post-9/11 institutions where local, state, and federal law enforcement officials meet with business leaders to share criminal intelligence and private sector data, with the hopes of mining that information to determine possible patterns of possible future crime (Gonsalves, 2008, p. 1).

States and local regions are taking steps towards information sharing. The Terrorism Early Warning Group (TEW) in Los Angeles County, California, is a multidisciplinary intelligence fusion and dissemination entity that fights terrorism by sharing networked local information (Kanable, 2006). The group also processes the available data into meaningful intelligence reports for use by other security agencies (Kanable, 2006). The Los Angeles County TEW is also linked to other agencies across all disciplines and levels of government and is in contact with the state fusion center. The Global Justice Extensible Markup Language (XML) Data Model (Global JXDM) is an XML standard that provides law enforcement, public safety agencies, prosecutors, public defenders, and the judicial branch with a tool to effectively share data and information promptly. Made up of two former senators, two former secretaries of state, two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other homeland security experts, the independent Task Force is responsible for making top-level security steps for the administration. The joint task force ensures greater information sharing between local and federal law enforcement officials via the establishment of a twenty-four-hour operations center in each state that can provide access to terrorist watch-list information (Hart and Rudman, 2002)

Analysis and recommendation

The information-sharing measures taken through the Homeland Security Act of 2002 are very effective programs as terror attacks on American soil have decreased after its implementation. However, a few recommendations may be made to increase its efficacy.
There should be provisions to hold government officials accountable for information sharing. This would streamline the information-sharing process between various agencies (Costigan and Gold, 2007).
A federal awards program may be instituted to recognize private-sector efforts and innovation in Homeland Security. The award criteria should be based on industry efforts to improve the security of their assets, increase security within sectors, and increase homeland security-related information sharing with federal, state, and local governments and NGOs.

Bibliography

Ball, Howard (2005). U.S. Homeland Security: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO Publishers.

Costigan, S. Sean and Gold, David (2007). Terrornomics. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Gonsalves, Sean (2008). Our Rights are under Attack. Alternet. Web.

Haddow, A. George; Bullock, A. Jane; Coppola, P. Damon (2007). Butterworth-Heinemann Publishers.

Harper, Liz (2003). Domestic Security: The Homefront and the War on Terrorism. PBS Online NewsHour. Web.

Hart, Gary and Rudman, B. Warren (2002). America-Still Unprepared, Still in Danger. Council on Foreign Relations Press.

Kanable, Rebecca (2006). Information & intelligence sharing after 9/11. Law Enforcement Technology. Web.

Thaler, M. William, and Bea, Keith (2005). Emerging Issues in Homeland Security. Nova Publishers.

Tillman, Bob (2003). More Information could mean less privacy. Information Management Journal.

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