Information Sharing in the U.S. Government?

Here's further evidence that the more things change the more they remain the same:

"Agencies fail to make information sharing a priority," by Jill R. Aitoro, NextGov, 30 July 2009

The Obama administration needs to restructure how interagency information-sharing initiatives are funded and implemented to encourage compliance by agencies that currently place a higher priority on their own missions, government and industry experts told House lawmakers Thursday.

"Differing missions, overlapping turf conflicts, resource constraints, bureaucratic inertia and agency tunnel vision still exist and impede information sharing," said Ambassador Thomas McNamara, program manager of the Information Sharing Environment, a post within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ISE was created by Congress in 2004 to facilitate the sharing of terrorism information across all levels of government and the private sector.

To read the rest of the article (highly recommended), go to: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090730_6847.php

Mark says:

Why am I not surprised? Maybe because I’ve been writing and talking about this for at least the past few years — and so have many others. So let’s round up the usual suspects — again.

There are two things that could have some positive impacts. (I’m too realistic — or perhaps too cynical — to suggest that they could be “solutions.”) First, start creating and enforcing some rewards and punishments for agencies and managers to become advocates/champions/enforcers of interagency information sharing. Call it “behavior modification.” Turn those agency managers and directors into Borg: “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

And second, remember the government’s Golden Rule: “Them that has the gold makes the rules.” Which relates back to my first suggestion. One of the best incentives — or rewards — is money. Don’t throw money at the problem, which will only end up with agencies buying expensive systems that they won’t use correctly — if they use them at all. Instead, increase budgets to agencies that actually do information sharing, so they can show other agencies not only how it’s done but how it benefits them, and pay bonuses to managers who actually do something to further information sharing at their agencies. (Metrics to be developed later.) Decrease budgets of agencies that don’t get with the program. (I realize I’m painting with broad strokes here but we’ve been talking and complaining and wringing our collective hands — well, maybe some of us — for years and not that much has been accomplished for all the huffing and puffing. Let’s try something different, for a change.)

In his testimony to the Homeland Security Committee's panel on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, Ambassador McNamara stated, “Differing missions, overlapping turf conflicts, resource constraints, bureaucratic inertia and agency tunnel vision still exist and impede information sharing... We are appealing to agencies to do what is in the common good, but [they] have their own missions and objectives."

It seems to me that Ambassador McNamara is also painting a pretty fair description of Congress and its committees, so why shouldn't executive branch agencies resemble the branch of government that pays the bills?

Note that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, otherwise known as the 9/11 Commission, urged Congress back in 2004 to create a single point of oversight for national security — otherwise all other national security reforms would suffer. When the commission’s final report was published in July 2004 there were 88 Congressional committees and subcommittees that claimed oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). There are now 108 Congressional committees and subcommittees that claim oversight of DHS. That’s an 18.5% increase — not decrease — over the past five years in the number of committees and subcommittees claiming oversight. And as the 9/11 commission predicted, other national security reforms have suffered — especially all those related to interagency information sharing.

Anyone want to bet that by the time we're observing the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks (give or take a year or two) we'll have another commission calling for the creation of a single point of oversight — and it will be déjà vu all over again?