DHS Data Sharing Network Broken, Subcommittee Hears
Congressmen and witnesses slammed DHS’s law enforcement information sharing network as ineffective, costly and redundant at a House Intelligence Subcommittee hearing Thurs. The Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN), a secure Web-based portal that the agency uses to share counter- terrorism intelligence with local and state police. But HSIN doesn’t work as promised, Chmn. Harmon (D-Cal.) said: “What we have instead is kind of a mess.” Rather than capitalize on existing state and local networks, DHS seems to have created a new network, to defend the agency’s turf, she said: Many at DHS “do not know what state and local needs are.” HSIN landed on the OMB’s watch list and high risk list of poorly executed projects that require executive attention, Harmon said: “It’s totally unacceptable.”
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In some ways, DHS reinvented the wheel, creating a system rather than synthesizing state and local arrangements already in operation, said David Powner, GAO dir.-Information Technology management issues. Some “overlap is okay, but not duplication,” he said. In a report issued Thurs. GAO said that in developing HSIN, “DHS did not effectively coordinate with key state and local initiatives that are part of 6 Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS),” including policy coordination and procedures. The Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks “limited coordination” because after them DHS “expedited its schedule for deploying HSIN,” the report said.
The HSIN system duplicates data in RISS networks, said Donald Kennedy, New England State Police Information Network exec. dir. Police using RISS centers have access to bulletin boards, databases and other online resources for collecting and sharing material on terror and emergencies, he said. RISS and HSIN are “getting closer to getting RSS feeds from DHS to RISS, but we need to do more” on interoperability and document sharing, Kennedy said. For the systems to connect better, “We need buy-in from senior leadership at DoJ and DHS,” he said: “We're not in competition with any agency.” RISS is “like Switzerland,” he said: “We want to get along with everybody.”
In 2005, Rep. Langevin (R-RI) said, he saw no need for HSIN. After visiting RISS centers, he thought RISS could serve as a “backbone for a national information sharing network,” he said. So he was frustrated at the GAO’s conclusion that HSIN - a new network he considered unnecessary -- “is not only not interoperable but duplicative,” he said: DHS “spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars” on HSIN and it “still falls short.” RISS and HSIN were connected in the past but a 2006 upgrade severed them, said DHS Deputy Dir.-Operations Coordination Wayne Parent: “We're now refixing that technical connection… not only as gateway to let documents flow back and forth but we both have a bigger expectation of where this is going to go. It’s the beginning of new or much better relationship.”
Simply relying on RISS and “pulling the plug” on HSIN wouldn’t solve the problem, Parent said, adding that HSIN has unique elements and the 2 networks are “a bit like apples and oranges.” DHS responded to the GAO report on HSIN -- and similar concerns of DHS’s inspector general -- by developing new management strategies and a “requirements evaluation process,” he said. An HSIN advisory council will meet for the first time in Aug., he said: “The system must be user friendly and HSIN has not enjoyed that evaluation.”