Tuesday, 18th August 2009

Nation At Risk: Policy Makers Need Better Information to Protect the Country

Nation At Risk: Policy Makers Need Better Information to Protect the Country (PDF; 455 KB)
Source: The Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age

For all the nation has invested in national security in the last several years, we remain vulnerable to terrorist attack and emerging national security threats because we have not adequately improved our ability to know what we know about these threats. The Obama administration confronts a stark set of national security challenges including terrorism, instability from the global economic crisis, energy security, climate change, cybersecurity, and weapons of mass destruction. President Obama and his administration cannot identify, understand, and respond to these threats without the collaboration and sharing of information among officials across the government so fragments of information can be brought together to create knowledge. To improve decision making, the new administration needs to take immediate steps to improve information sharing.

Today, we are still vulnerable to attack because--as on 9/11--we are still not able to connect the dots. At the same time, civil liberties are at risk because we don't have the government-wide policies in place to protect them as intelligence collection has expanded.

The President and Congress must reaffirm information sharing as a top priority, ensuring that policymakers have the best information to inform their decisions. We are at a critical moment, where immediate action at the start of the Obama administration is required. There is unfinished business in implementing an information sharing framework across all agencies that have information important to national security (including state and local organizations). If there is another terrorist attack on the United States, the American people will neither understand nor forgive a failure to have taken this opportunity to get the right policies and structures in place. An information sharing framework will allow government to collaborate effectively across diverse areas to inform policymakers better without undermining civil liberties. The President and Congress must ensure that all government information relevant to national security is discoverable and accessible to authorized users while audited to ensure accountability. Otherwise we will remain vulnerable.

Hat tip: Secrecy News

Category:

• Government and politics (DocuTicker)
• National security (DocuTicker)
• Terrorism (DocuTicker)

Views: 232

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