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The improved sharing of law enforcement and homeland security information is having the intended effect — 10 years after Congress created a new office to lead the effort. The impact of all the changes can now be understood more than a year after the tragic and deadly attack at the Boston Marathon. Kshemendra Paul is the program manager of the Information Sharing Environment. He told executive editor Jason Miller on the Federal Drive about how the response to the Boston Marathon attack, and other examples, shows just how much progress has been made over the last decade.
Information Sharing Environment is helping to shape the policy and technology pieces to help implement the two-year-old White House's strategy on information sharing and safeguarding. The back-end attribute exchange is an expanding component to solve this challenge.
Kshemendra Paul, the program manager of the Information Sharing Environment, said his organization's tools and techniques are creating collaboration and trust among federal, state and local law enforcement officers. The Boston Marathon bombing is the most recent example of just how much the way intelligence is shared among authorities.
It even sounds complicated: making information resources assessible, discoverable, and usable by the public, and making open and machine readable the new default for government information. But that's what the White House ordered in May of 2013. Now agencies are finally getting their heads around how best to meet the requirements of the open data policy. Several agencies realize what's needed is a combination of policy and action. Federal News Radio's executive editor Jason Miller joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with details about the plans of some agencies to meet this 18-month-old policy.
USDA, DHS and Transportation are taking steps to implement OMB's May 2013 open data policy. Each agency faces policy and process challenges, but they say progress is starting.
Whether or not North Korea was behind the recent cyber attack on Sony Pictures, its level of sophistication suggests it was sponsored by a country, not a group of hackers. And the FBI believes the same attack could just as easily have penetrated most sophisticated networks, including government ones.
Fighting domestic terrorism, natural disasters and cyber attacks is a multi-agency effort. The Homeland Security Department's fusion centers foster information sharing among all levels of government and in the private sector. But auditors at the Government Accountability Office find problems with how DHS accounts for funding to the centers. Eileen Larence, director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at GAO, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with details.
As part of a project dubbed Command Post 2025, the Army wants to begin running complex modeling and simulation programs on the battlefield, using low-power devices in austere conditions.
Andy Ozment, assistant secretary of the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications in DHS, said the CDM, Einstein and Enhance Cybersecurity Services programs are on the upswing in terms of impact and number of users. Ozment said there are no delays with CDM, and the Einstein intrusion detection and prevention software covers 25 percent of all federal employees.
The goal of the scorecard or dashboard would be to give government leaders a better sense of just how secure agency networks are from hackers. As the 11th annual National Cybersecurity Awareness Month begins, DHS is doing much less education about why securing computers and networks is important.
OMB and Treasury are creating a roadmap on how to move forward with DATA Act implementation over the next 12 to 36 months. Meanwhile, congressional and executive branch auditors are part of the oversight process from the beginning.
The White House has unveiled new or expanded commitments to open government. Included are plans to adopt an open source software policy, with a deadline of Dec. 31, 2015, as well as plans to improve delivery of government digital services.
Christina Ho, the executive director for data transparency in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, said Treasury developed short-and long-term plans to improve the spending portal. She said DATA Act requirements fit well in the department's strategy.
The Inspector General Act gives IGs authority to obtain any information necessary for their investigations, but some agencies are giving IGs a hard time with their requests. Members of Senate and House oversight committees are calling on Shaun Donovan, the recently confirmed director of the Office of Management and Budget, to address the issue.