After passage in the House last fall, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) this week introduced in the Senate a bill that directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop a central framework to integrate its disparate datasets so that agencies can access information about potential terrorist threats faster.
The DHS Data Framework Act (H.R. 2454) will codify an ongoing effort within the department to create data standards that allow different agencies to more quickly make information available that currently resides in multiple databases, each with different access authorities and legal restriction.
The framework “will help ensure that counterterrorism analysts at DHS agencies such as the Secret Service and TSA can quickly and efficiently access data from across the department,” Hassan said in a Feb. 7 statement.
The bipartisan bill was first introduced in the House by Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), who praised its introduction by Hassan in the Senate, saying “17 years have passed since 9/11, yet barriers to information sharing still exist, hindering law enforcement’s ability to get the right information to the right people at the right time. DHS personnel should be able to share information quickly without compromising our nation’s secrets.”
DHS Deputy Secretary Elaine Duke told Hassan on Wednesday during a Senate committee roundtable discussion that the data framework, which is in the early development phase, is a “top priority” and is “essential” in the fight against terrorism and trans-criminal organizations.
The data framework will help with “timeliness and accuracy,” Duke said. “Things are moving at lightning speed, especially with something like radicalization. We don’t have the years of tracking a criminal anymore. We are all focused on this.”
Developing the data framework in part is a “pipes,” issue, Duke said, noting that the system needs to be developed. It’s also a communications issue, she said, pointing to the need to better share law enforcement sensitive and intelligence information.
Duke said that David Glawe, the under secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at DHS, is working to be the “chief intelligence officer” of the department under the larger Unity of Effort initiative at the department aimed at breaking down stovepipes between and among agencies and components. She said Glawe’s effort is part of work for the data framework.