Transforming Interagency Information Sharing

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The second workshop, convened to consider a national written policy to share information within the maritime domain, began with a panel presentation by information sharing experts. The panel was headed by Mr. Michael Resnick, Senior Director, Information Sharing Policy, Executive Office of the President. The panel was completed by Mr. Curtis Dubay, P.E., Deputy Director, DHS Office of Executive Agent for MDA and CAPT Rafael Nieves, USN, OGMSA, Data Sharing and Infrastructure Branch Head. Panelist set the tone for the discussion of the national policy to share maritime information by stressing the importance of information sharing resulting in enhanced national security, citing the willingness of maritime partners to share and reiterating that prevailing technology can be employed to develop a robust and effective information sharing system. A flood of questions from workshop participants, thoughtful response from the panelist and a resulting give and take discussion among all the participants revealed agency awareness of the need to share. This enthusiastic group discussion revealed a fundamental desire to develop an effective information sharing scheme and an eagerness for enactment thereof. The question is not why. The question is not when. The question is how. How does the federal executive branch enact a policy which requires fifteen disparate executive departments and their myriad agencies to share information pertaining to the maritime domain resulting in improved security to the public, trade, commerce and infrastructure of the United States?

The second workshop divided the quintessential question into three parts. The first part asked participants to suggest and advocate for The Form of the National Policy. Divided into four working groups with assigned leaders and recorders, the participants submitted written drafts, suggestions and comments regarding the form of the proposed national policy to share maritime information. Proposals included an Executive Order, Executive Memorandum, a Memorandum of Understanding, a Memorandum of Agreement and internal departmental policy. General consensus indicated that the national policy should originate from the Office of the President and be binding upon all fifteen executive departments. The second portion of the question required participants to Draft Specific Language for inclusion in the national policy to share maritime information. This endeavor produced a plethora of possibilities. Specific suggestions required a clear and specific definition of the Maritime Domain. Language which bound the departments was included. Also included was language dealing with privacy and other traditionally recognized barriers to sharing. The import of suggested language required federal executive departments to share maritime information to the greatest extent possible and permissible under law and regulation. Participants adopted a proposal put forth by the Office of the DoD EA for MDA that a special committee be formed to hammer out the specific form and language of the policy. The third aspect of the considered question required participants to indentify the Path to Advancing the national policy. Generally consensus held that the policy should be advanced through the Executive Steering Committee, passed to the MDA Stakeholders Board and forwarded to either the Maritime Security Interagency Policy Committee or the Information Sharing Interagency Policy Committee headed by Mr. Resnick, or both. Ultimately the policy should be presented to the Office of the President via the national security chain.

Workshop participants drew on personal experience and a deep understanding of the working of government. They avoided cynicism and negativity and focused on a positive path to the successful advancement and adoption of a national policy to share maritime information. Participants extracted principals, procedures and lessons from existing policy on information sharing within their communities of interest, departments and agencies. They submitted a ream of written proposals and suggestion. A small group of drafters must now be convened to examine and utilize the proposals to draft the desired policy. This policy will then be combined with a dispute resolution procedure to form a comprehensive information sharing plan for use within the maritime domain.

The third workshop in the series will be convened on the afternoon of 16December2009 in room 2501 at United States Coast Guard Headquarters and sponsored by OGMSA. Workshop Three will be lead by experts in the area of Alternative Dispute Resolution and will focus on the production of a procedure to resolve information sharing disputes. Further notice and invitations will be published.

The workshop entitled Transforming Interagency Information Sharing was hosted by OGMSA on 17June2009 at US Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, DC. Approximately sixty attendees from seventeen agencies were divided into four working groups. Each group was provided with a professional facilitator, pens, pads, a flip chart and a series of questions. Three principal information sharing questions were considered and discussed by the working groups over an eight hour day. For each question each group appointed a recorder and a spokesperson. At the conclusion of the discussion session each of the four groups sent its spokesperson forward for presentation of the group's findings to the gathered assembly. Each spokesman identified the group and put forward the group's findings on the question under consideration. Thereafter the presenter entertained questions and solicited support from group members. The findings were captured by an assigned workshop recorder. This format ensured the participation of all attendees and fashioned a sincere, and at times passionate, exchange of ideas and opinions. The dialog, exchange of views, production of ideas and resulting recommendations rendered an Esprit De Corps resulting in an excellent examination of the current status of federal interagency information sharing policies, procedure and practice.

It is not the intent of the workshop series just to engender discussion. Discussion is a means to an end. The workshops seek to transform ideas into action, to recognize a need, assess a problem, design a course of action, and lay the foundation for advocating and acceptance of the workshop recommendations. The intent of these workshops is to elicit a board range of input to design, publish, and adopt an interdepartmental policy to share information and outline a formal procedure to resolve information sharing disputes. The first volley of input was enthusiastically delivered by workshop participants. Their message was clear and unambiguous. They are ready to share information, want to resolve disputes and eliminate barriers, seek concise, single source guidance, request support from senior leadership and desire to transform the interagency culture to foster and institutionalize information sharing for the benefit and protection of the American public, its safety, economy and interrelationship with its government.

In the first question under consideration the workshop participants were asked to Identify Existing Mandates for Federal Interagency Information Sharing. Workshop attendees from all four working groups uniformly affirmed that there currently exists a federal mandate requiring inter-agency information sharing. Consensus attributed the mandate to the demand for improved information sharing issued by the 911/Commission and subsequent reports and commissions. Examples of the information sharing mandates included legislation, national plans, national strategies, national directives, executive orders, departmental policy, and inter-departmental memoranda of agreement to share. Examples in practice included the US Department of Justice work with law enforcement, the acceptance of national and state fusion centers, The Program Manager for Information Sharing Environment, national threat response coordination, and the establishment of information sharing offices within federal agencies and departments.

In consideration of the second principal question workshop participants were asked to Identify and Discuss the Barriers to Information Sharing. Oft cited and familiar barriers to information sharing were recognized. These included the Privacy Act, prevailing understanding of Personally Identifiable Information, national security concerns, document classification and the culture of information protectionism. Workshop attendees provided numerous personal anecdotal examples of information sharing barriers. Examples included technological concerns, the turnover of individuals knowable in information sharing, the protection of personnel records, concern regarding contractual proprieties, disclosure to foreign governments, disclosure to unauthorized contractors and the remnants of the need to know culture. Participants concluded that most of the identified barriers were attributed to supervisors' decisions. Often the subordinate felt powerless to challenge the decision even though in their opinion national best interests were probably being circumvented. Workshop attendees reached consensus in recognition of the need for transforming inter-agency information sharing norms and culture.

The third information sharing question under scrutiny required the participants to Provide Recommendations to Improve Federal Interagency Information Sharing. Workshop participants delivered a variety of outstanding recommendations to improve the culture, procedure and practice of information sharing and to resolve information sharing disputes. These recommendations included savvy observations and cogent advice. Successful transformation must include accountability for information sharing, by, between and among agencies. Currently agencies are hesitant to formally document another agency's decision not to share information. Because of that reluctance it is difficult to formally document an information sharing barrier and pinpoint the root cause of the barrier and difficult to seek possible resolution. Additionally transformation must include an incentive to share. Current incentives to share information are unclear and there is a tendency for decision-makers to ere on the side of not-sharing. Decision makers perceive the risk of sharing is greater than any reward gained by sharing. Hence effective inter-agency information sharing is currently based on cultivating personal relationships and networking, and is neither based on incentive nor is it institutionalized. Information sharing must receive the support of the highest levels of American Government. Institutionalized interagency information sharing can be achieved by establishing a single source mandate for information sharing. That mandate must include a clear policy to share information and a procedure to effectively resolve information sharing disputes. Incentives must be fixed that encourage decision-makers to error on the side of sharing information. Recommendations included incentives such as performance evaluation recognition of information sharing support and budget incentives to share information. Employees must be trained on procedures and methods of effective information sharing and myths and misconception resulting in artificial barriers to information sharing must be dispensed with. Education should include a day long, certificate bearing, course of study to include the mandate for information sharing, the mechanics of information sharing, Privacy Act, Alternative Dispute Resolution and the technology of information sharing. Legislative and leadership efforts to advance, accept and make inveterate quick and effect inter-agency information sharing are required.

The workshop concluded with the summation that the federal workforce is ready to undertake the transformation of information sharing. The demand signal is clear. Change must follow. Through a sincere and concerted effort to share information the current culture can be reformed and current practices transformed resulting in the enhanced protection of the American public.