“Several events this past year — the Fort Hood Shooting and the attempted bombings on Christmas Day and in Times Square — highlight challenges, successes, and gaps in our ability to effectively share and access information,” wrote Kshemendra N. Paul, the program manager of the ODNI Information Sharing Environment (ISE) in a new annual report to Congress (pdf) on the current state of intelligence and threat information sharing.
“Looking back to the events of September 11, 2001, we have come far in our sharing of and access to information across boundaries organizational boundaries and mission domains. Yet much remains to be done to support the frontline,” Mr. Paul wrote.
The information sharing initiative is focused on overcoming barriers to communication within the government, not on public disclosure. But sharing ought to include the public too, the report suggested at one point.
“Most of the work of building the ISE to date has been aimed at expanding information sharing across all areas of government in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, with private sector organizations and foreign partners. As the ISE continues to evolve, however, we recognize that to support the Administration’s commitment to openness and transparency, we must extend those efforts to include the American public as well,” the new annual report to Congress said (p. 57).
The strength of our nation’s data policy isn’t just in the rules we write, but in how effectively we translate those rules into a system that prioritizes the public good. Join us in this movement to design and build more resilient national data policies.
The human cost is measured in deaths. The financial cost is measured in the $52 billion taxpayers pay annually end stage renal disease – double NASA’s budget.
Gilman Louie, Longest Serving Board Chair of the Federation of American Scientists, Named Chair Emeritus
The proposed Office will resurrect the long-closed Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the archive of which has been maintained by FAS for decades at https://ota.fas.org/.