Recent terrorist attacks and intelligence operations in Paris and Beirut are underlining the need for better information sharing between U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Law enforcement leaders said they understand the power that data can have on their ability to respond to crises, but the path to sharing that information and developing interoperable systems to support it has been too slow.

“We get lots of information,” said Karl Mathias, chief information officer and assistant director of the information technology division at the U.S. Marshals Service, during a Nov. 19 panel discussion at AFCEA Bethesda’s monthly breakfast. “I have it from all over, from many different sources, which is the problem. It’s taking data and turning it into knowledge that we can execute against, [that] is really the struggle we face.”

Too often, government thinks in terms of programs and systems and the agencies that own them, said Jeff Johnson, chief technology officer and assistant director for IT applications and data division at the FBI.

Instead, agencies should consider the information itself and what purpose it will serve toward the larger goal.

“If we focus in on that data and those attributes that we really meaningfully want to protect, it will enable us to more broadly share in the cloud, because we will talk about what people have legitimate, authorized access to what data,” he said. “What data needs to be shared with which communities, and which protections that goes under. Right now, we are protecting systems. We protect devices, and then we have exceptions to those devices.”

Getting the right technology and getting it quickly

The devices and systems law enforcement agencies use to gather, process and share threat data are improving, but also at too slow a pace.

The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) division is improving collaboration between law enforcement communities, Johnson said. The hope is to add more rich data and deliver it closer to real time.

The Marshals Service is working with the Bureau of Prisons to develop an automated, paperless data sharing program, Mathias said. The goal is to cut back the amount of paperwork — usually two large plastic bins full of files — the Marshals Service and the bureau carry with them when they transport prisoners.

The agency has also hired a chief data officer, who will work with Mathias in the CIO’s office on the data analytics side. The new Marshals Service CDO will start Nov. 30, he said.

For Mathias, his priorities lie in perfecting the basic technologies and services his employees need to do their jobs, like tablet computers, desktop support and mobile phones. He said he’s in the process of getting iPhones out to his employees to use in the field. About a quarter of the staff have new phones now, and Mathias said everyone will have one by the end of January.

When Michael Gilmore, supervisory special agent for the engineering research facility at the FBI, started his career at the bureau, he sat at one of four desks pushed together with a phone in the middle that was shared among he and his colleagues. Years later, they shared one computer.

“Fast forward to today, and I have several systems in my office, and one computer for this network or this system and one for the other based on different rules of operation for each of those systems,” Gilmore said. “That’s what I struggle with is our ability in government in general to adopt some of the technology earlier, because it does provide great benefits to the investigative process.”

But ultimately, Johnson said the real task is making the data the FBI collects transparent, and then equipping the right people with the right information to make better decisions and intercept possible threats.

“That information doesn’t belong to a system,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t belong to a program. It doesn’t belong to an agency. It belongs to the taxpayers. It belongs to the citizens of the world, and it must be shared. In order to get there, we must start to reshape the way we define programs, the way we fund programs and the way we acquire programs in the government.”

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