A federal effort to share terrorist-related information across homeland security, law enforcement, defense, foreign affairs and intelligence communities is not fully functional, says the Government Accountability Office.

In a report dated July 21, GAO auditors say the Information Sharing Environment, more than 6 years after its creation was mandated by the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, lacks a clear definition of what it's intended to achieve.

To date, most ISE activities have focused on information sharing between the homeland security and law enforcement communities--primarily domestic sharing between federal, state and local governments, the report says. Among the key efforts have been the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (which came under recent, separate criticism for not being inclusive enough) and the national network of fusion centers. The ISE is not an information technology system per se; rather, it's meant to be an environment in which existing, decentralized systems across governmental agencies can exchange data.

Officials from the Justice Department--which in February 2010 became the lead agency for the SAR initiative--told auditors this initial focus on information sharing among domestic agencies is appropriate. But auditors say the Intelligence Reform Act doesn't impose such limitations on the ISE.

ISE Program Manager Kshemendra Paul told auditors that information, for example, from the State Department about entrants to the United States could be valuable in a terrorist information sharing context--but State officials said they never received a request from the ISE for such information.

State officials told GAO auditors that they share terrorist-related information with other agencies through a variety of mechanisms, but none of them originating from the ISE. Defense Department officials also told auditors that they're developing with the FBI interagency information sharing agreements, but also outside of the aegis of the ISE.

The ISE itself has generally eschewed developing information sharing mechanisms for any information classified top secret or above. Paul told auditors that the ISE has left that to the intelligence community, and that the ISE is unlikely to have a role there in the future.

The report also criticizes the ISE program office for not preparing estimated implementation costs. The Office of Management and Budget has told agencies to implement the ISE out of existing budgets, a stance State and Justice officials said they've had difficulty doing. ISE program office officials said that since there's never been a stand-alone budget for the program, they've never prepared estimated costs.

"New ISE requirements will need additional investments, regardless of whether they are funded through existing agency budgets, a separate program budget, or another mechanism," the report says.

In a response to a GAO recommendation that the ISE prepare cost estimates, Paul said that it's individual agencies that should prepare them, a response the report says doesn't match ISE PM duties under the Intelligence Reform Act. Paul also said the ISE and agencies should have complete by the end of this summer a document defining the ISE end state.

For more:
- download the report, GAO-11-455 (.pdf)

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