Introduction: Collaboration for HSINT

This week we turn to the topic of interagency and intergovernmental collaboration for HSINT. There are a great many different types of collaboration and information sharing among the many different agencies required to effectively protect this nation from threats. This lack of effective sharing and collaboration contributed to the tragedy of 9/11, and was the subject of many reforms. However, this remains a work in progress both among the federal agencies and down to the critical partners at the state and local levels.

We saw the devastating effects of lack of information sharing leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks that we have discussed multiple times in this course. This is still just as important today as the recent joint review of domestic sharing of counterterrorism information by the combined Inspectors General of the IC, DHS and DOJ stated, “Fifteen years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, the terrorist threat remains in the United States and abroad…The U.S.’s national security depends on the ability to share the right information with the right people at the right time. This requires sustained and responsible collaboration among federal, state, local, and tribal entities, as well as the private sector and international partners” (IGs, 2017, p. i).

One example of the required collaboration for homeland security intelligence is the need for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together. However, there are significant differences in the roles and cultures of each type of agency, which makes collaboration and effective sharing a challenge. While the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 removed the figurative” wall” between them, it cannot legislate corresponding change attitudes and perceptions of officials in each type of agency who determine what is shared with whom and how much is shared (Davisson, 2004).

Another example of the required collaboration for effective homeland security intelligence is sharing between the different levels of government. Our trifurcated government system has overlapping security responsibilities for federal, state and local authorities, State and local governments have a key role to play in internal security and our Constitution and the 10th Amendment leaves with states police powers; often delegated to local authorities (Gardner, 2017). As Foley (2016) wrote in his article about counter-terrorism turf wars, “there’s a proliferation of individual agencies with unclear and overlapping jurisdictions, which leads them to step on each other’s toes” (para. 8). This means countering the threats of today clearly calls for cohesion and sharing between and among agencies at all three levels of government to prevent future attacks. As the reading on Homeland Security 4.0 described, interagency effectiveness is also unlikely to stem from over-centralization in Washington.

Reforms after 9/11 focused on reorganization and transformation of the IC, as well as improving information sharing both between federal agencies and with the critically important state and local agencies. It is important to note, however, that those reforms did not remove all the barriers to information sharing. Although the “wall” was removed between law enforcement and intelligence agencies, many challenges remain. The mentality of secrecy and organizational cultures that emphasize institutional equities are still strong impediments to effective sharing.

Obstacles and challenges hindering effective information and intelligence sharing include legal, procedural, technical and bureaucratic impediments. For example, just the lack of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between agencies can keep officials from sharing what common sense would say should be shared. In fact, the 9/11 Commissioners called on government agencies to discard the mentality of over-classifying information and sharing only with those who “need to know” to transform the culture into one where the emphasis is on sharing with all of those essential to securing the nation.

Interorganizational Sharing and Collaboration

One proven technique to enable effective interorganizational sharing and collaboration is the use of interagency task forces or joint coordination groups. One of the first examples of multi-agency task forces goes back to the 1970s when the FBI and other agencies working in New York City decided to band together and work as a team to counter-narcotics instead of bumping into each other. The military has also pioneered some highly effective interagency and multi-jurisdictional teams such as the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South). This JIATF more effectively counters narcotics smuggling in the Caribbean Sea with a Coast Guard Admiral in command and a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency as deputy and naval and air assets of the U.S. and other partner nations providing the collection and interception forces (Lamb, 2011). This multi-agency task force approach is slowly making its way into homeland security where the relatively independent components of DHS (the field agencies). As an example,

We are doing away with the stove-piped approach to border security. Instead, we are putting to use, in a combined and coordinated way, the assets and personnel of CBP, ICE, CIS, the Coast Guard, toward the goal of border security. We have established three new Department task forces, each headed by a senior official of this Department, to direct the resources of CBP, ICE, CIS and the Coast Guard in three discrete areas. The first, Joint Task Force-East, will be responsible for our maritime ports and approaches across the southeast. The second, Joint Task Force-West, will be responsible for our southwest land border and the West coast of California. And the third will be a standing Joint Task Force for Investigations to support the work of the other two Task Forces. (Johnson, 2015).

This speaks to the challenge facing the Department of Homeland Security which not only has to effectively interface with other external federal partners like the FBI and the other agencies of the intelligence community, but it also has to sort out intra-agency information sharing challenges with and among the DHS components – the action arms of the field agencies. The Government Accountability Office continues to rate integrating the DHS into a cohesive entity as high risk and likely to take years to bring to fruition (GAO, 2015). However, we should also realize it took many wars and literal fratricide to get the Department of Defense the military services to a highly effective level of jointness. Interestingly, a DHS Undersecretary for Management recently stated at the time that after 12 years, DHS is “a teenager, confused and complicated” (Clark, 2015, para. 5). Collaboration for homeland security intelligence is a very necessary goal and also challenging for many of the reasons listed above.

It is important to also address the recent unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden made many in the IC question the benefits of extensive information sharing. So these agencies must balance dissemination and still maintain safeguards on sensitive information. Intelligence and information sharing is a very complex issue with competing requirements, and not a subject with simple solutions. The U.S. Government Accountability Office continues to rate terrorism information sharing as a high risk function.

Following the terrorist attacks of 2001, Congress and the executive branch took numerous actions aimed explicitly at establishing a range of new measures to strengthen the nation’s ability to identify, detect, and deter terrorism-related activities. For example, the Information Sharing Environment (ISE) was established in accordance with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Intelligence Reform Act), as amended, to facilitate the sharing of terrorism-related information… While this demonstrates significant and important progress, sharing terrorism-related information remains a constantly evolving area that requires continued effort and attention from the Program Manager, departments, and agencies. Sharing terrorism-related information remains an area with some risk and continues to be vitally important to homeland security. It requires ongoing oversight as well as continuous improvement to identify and respond to changing threats and technology (GAO, n.d., para. 1, 4).

As one scholar recently wrote, “Where intelligence agencies add value is by integrating the best open-source information and integrating it with the secret nuggets they gather. All intelligence is information. But not all information is intelligence” (Zegart, 2017, para. 6). However, you cannot develop a full picture of threats if information and intelligence are not shared with those who should receive intelligence or be able to access reports. It does need to be acknowledged that there have been many improvements in intelligence and information sharing.

References

9/11 Commission. (2004) Retrieved from https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf

Clark, C.S. (2015, November 10). Homeland Security Leaders See Progress in ‘Unity of Effort’ Government Executive. Retrieved from http://www.govexec.com/defense/2015/11/homeland-security-leaders-see-progress-unity-effort/123573/?oref=relatedstories

Davisson, S. P. (2004). Spooks Vs. Suits – the Ultimate Sibling Rivalry: CIA/FBI Interagency Competition, Communicative Failures, and Effects on U.S. National Security. Retrieved from https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?

Foley, F. (2016) U.S. counterterrorism is mired in turf wars. We could learn a lot from the U.K. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/19/there-are-turf-wars-in-u-s-domestic-counterterrorism-efforts-the-u-k-doesnt-have-this-problem/?utm_term=.7bde5442313c

Gardner, J. (2017). A Duty to Share: The Opportunities and Obstacles of Federal Counterterrorism Intelligence Sharing with Nonfederal Fusion Centers. Walden University Dissertation.

Johnson, J. (2015, January 29). Secretary of Homeland Security: DHS 2015: The Secretary’s Progress Report. Retrieved from http://www.dhs.gov/news/2015/01/29/remarks-secretary-johnson-dhs-2015-secretarys-progress-report

Joint Review of Domestic Sharing of Counterterrorism Information. (2017). Inspector Generals of the IC, DHS and DOJ. Retrieved from https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2017/a1721.pdf

Lamb, C. (2011). Joint Interagency Task Force–South: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success. Retrieved from http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/inss/Strategic-Perspectives-5.pdf

The Information Sharing Environment (ISE). (n.d.) Information Sharing Systems and Architecture ISE Retrieved from https://www.ise.gov/resources/training-resources/core-awareness-training-supplemental-materials/information-sharing-systems-and-architecture

U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). n.d. Terrorism-Related Information Sharing – High Risk Issue. Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/terrorism_related_information_sharing/issue_summary#t=0

Zegart, A. (January 6). Why the Intelligence Community Matters. Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. Retrieved from http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/why-intelligence-community-matters

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