Fergie's Tech Blog

Is Government Data Sharing Stopping Terrorists? Who knows.

An AP newswire article by Christine Simmons, via The Boston Globe, reports that:

Nearly seven years after 9/11, the government still can't measure how well an office created to improve information sharing on terrorism may be helping prevent attacks, congressional investigators say.

The Information Sharing Environment was formed partly in response to criticism that a lack of information-sharing among government agencies was one reason the U.S. didn't prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York.

A Government Accountability Office report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press says the ISE has "begun to develop some performance measures, but they focus on counting activities accomplished rather than results achieved."

For example, the investigators said the ISE is able to determine the number of organizations that have procedures for acquiring and processing reports on suspicious activities, but the ISE does not measure what difference such information is making in helping prevent terrorist attacks.

posted by Fergie @ 7/22/2008 09:29:00 PM