Report: Domestic security tech efforts lagging

WASHINGTON - The U.S. is not taking advantage of its technology expertise to fight terrorism because U.S. government agencies are still reluctant to share terrorism-related information with each other, two years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a new report authored by leading IT and national security experts.

The Markle Foundation report, "Creating a Trusted Information Network for Homeland Security," released Tuesday, recommends that President Bush set up a decentralized terrorism analysis network that would encourage government agencies to share information with each other and with local law enforcement agencies.The Markle Foundation's recommended System-wide Homeland Analysis and Resource Exchange (SHARE) Network could effectively combat terrorism while protecting privacy and other civil liberties, said members of the foundation's Task Force on National Security in the Information Age during a press conference in Washington, D.C.

President Bush needs to make information-sharing across agencies a priority, and the SHARE Network would be the first step toward ensuring that the "Cold War mentality" of agencies guarding their information is broken down, said Michael Vatis, executive director of the task force.

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WASHINGTON - The U.S. is not taking advantage of its technology expertise to fight terrorism because U.S. government agencies are still reluctant to share terrorism-related information with each other, two years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a new report authored by leading IT and national security experts.

The Markle Foundation report, "Creating a Trusted Information Network for Homeland Security," released Tuesday, recommends that President Bush set up a decentralized terrorism analysis network that would encourage government agencies to share information with each other and with local law enforcement agencies.The Markle Foundation's recommended System-wide Homeland Analysis and Resource Exchange (SHARE) Network could effectively combat terrorism while protecting privacy and other civil liberties, said members of the foundation's Task Force on National Security in the Information Age during a press conference in Washington, D.C.

President Bush needs to make information-sharing across agencies a priority, and the SHARE Network would be the first step toward ensuring that the "Cold War mentality" of agencies guarding their information is broken down, said Michael Vatis, executive director of the task force.

The U.S. needs to have a debate about how government collects and shares information, added Zoë Baird, president of the Markle Foundation. U.S. residents are wary of government data collection and data-mining projects, such as the Department of Defense's Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) project, because there's no government-wide standard, based on public input, on what information can be collected on residents and how it can be shared, she said.

"Not a lot of thought has been put into collecting the information we need and how to link it," Baird said. "If we don't have this debate... it could cripple our use of technology to fight terrorism."

The report, a follow-up to an October 2002 Markle Foundation report, calls for the U.S. government to give greater priority to sharing and analyzing information. While the earlier report identified the ability to share information as the most urgent task facing the government's domestic security operations, the new report focuses on executing that.

"Our government should effectively utilize the valuable information that is held in private hands, but only within a system of rules and guidelines designed to protect our civil liberties," the report says. "Our nation can never hope to harden all potential targets against terrorist attack. Therefore, we must rely on information to try to detect, prevent, and respond to attacks."

U.S. agencies are reluctant to share information with each other because of a continuing culture of ownership of information, and because of fears that residents' privacy would be compromised by sharing information, Baird said.

Concerns over TIA and the Transportation Security Administration's proposed next-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II) happened because the public wasn't clear on what information would be collected and how it would be used, Baird said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.