Information sharingThe DHS intelligence sharing it is and isn’t doing
The problems with inter-governmental information sharing are not the result of technology; technology per se rarely is the genuine factor leading to institutional error; certainly it can be, but all too often it is slandered and defamed as if it were human; in agency after agency, however, DHS computers simply do what they are told to do as determined by their managers who follow formal or informal institutional policies
It is a truism in the scholarly research of large organizations, for instance the Department of Homeland Security with more than 200,000 employees, that when a public or private sector institution initiates a self-study the findings will always err on the side of caution and restraint. But what if the institutional self-study actually uncovers serious problems? And what if we’re not talking about widgets but national security?
DHS’s Office of Inspector General published a report in February, its second in a series of three, which specifically looks at major issues within its own domain of more than twenty federal agencies. The title of the redacted version of this report is: Information Sharing on Foreign Nationals: Border Security (OIG-12-39, February 2012). (This report follows a previous study, also by the OIG, Information Sharing on Foreign Nationals: Oversees Screening (OIG-11-68); a third report is scheduled.)
Beyond the usual bureaucratic jargon and reluctance to call out specific dysfunctional agencies within DHS who share both blame and responsibility for not sharing information about individuals seeking legal entry at our borders, a preliminary concern quickly apparent is that these deficiencies have gone unresolved since DHS was first formed by the George W. Bush Administration after the events of 9/11. DHS’s self- report remains, at base, a decade-long story about the relationship between technology, turf, and human decision-making.
But technology per se rarely is the genuine factor leading to institutional error; certainly it can be, but all too often it is slandered and defamed as if it were human. In agency after agency, however, DHS computers simply do what they are told to do as determined by their managers who follow formal or informal institutional policies.
So it is very interesting in this report about agency information sharing at our national borders that “bad data sets,” “flawed data,” and “incompatibility” between computer systems frequently are cited as major causes for the documented dysfunctionality between and among the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG).
Each of these five “operational components” in DHS is charged with sharing information about border security. This second OIG report specifically focuses on the difficult job of assessing whether or not foreign nationals should legally be allowed entrance into our country at our 327 ports of entry. We’re not talking here about the media frenzy
