Lack of trust: reluctance to share information hampers counterterrorism efforts.

As part of an ambitious plan to improve the flow of intelligence among law enforcement agencies, the U.S. government has set up several command centers where federal, state and local officials can share information.

But several years into this effort, these so-called "data fusion centers" are not functioning as originally planned, mostly because federal agencies have been reluctant to share intelligence with state and local officials.

Problems include clashing cultures between local law enforcement and federal agencies, lack of trust and the absence of a clear national fusion center strategy.

The data fusion centers were created in the aftermath of 9/11 in an attempt to prevent the intelligence failures that led to the attacks.

Although the concept has gained some funding and momentum, information sharing across agencies has not coalesced as planned. Forty-two states have established a fusion center or announced their intentions to do so, said Thomas Bossert, senior director for preparedness policy at the White House homeland security council. Although there is a significant "coalition of the willing," only about seven of those centers are operational and those few have a lot of work to do. "All operational fusion centers in America would today fail at an exercise," Bossert said at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement network-centric conference.

Most of these centers were created in 2004 to 2005 and are still working to acquire the staff and finances needed to sustain them.

One of the biggest challenges to creating successful fusion centers is developing an effective information-sharing environment.

U.S. officials are still "trying to figure out who owns information," said Carter Morris, director of information sharing and knowledge management at the Department of Homeland Security. Right now, intelligence flow between government agencies and law enforcement is subject to delays and gaps, which was demonstrated by the recent British airline threat.

On Aug. 10, 2006, Scotland Yard announced that an attempted terrorist attack on British airliners bound for the United States had been foiled the previous day. Although the White House knew about the plot, few people were told before it became public, Morris said at the conference. White House officials did not want the information released.

Perhaps the White House held out to prevent public panic. Or perhaps the Bush administration felt it alone had the right to that sensitive knowledge. Either way, it represents one of the political challenges to transferring information from one government entity to another.

The handling of the British terrorist plot illustrates the Cold War mentality of keeping intelligence safely guarded. This mindset is one of the cultural barriers to information sharing, said Eileen Larence, director of homeland security and justice issues at the Government Accountability Office. Agencies are slowly moving away from the "need to know" basis to "need to share," but it takes a long time to change the culture, she said in an interview.

A key challenge for fusion centers is the traditionally separate roles of law enforcement and the intelligence community.

"Part of the problem, I believe, lies in historical cultural differences between the intelligence community and law enforcement. For decades, our government erected a wall--a very solid wall--between these two functions," said Cathy Lanier, acting chief of police for the District of Columbia, in a statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In the past, legal barriers limited information sharing between the two entities, but now law enforcement has the responsibility for local and federal intelligence, Larence remarked. The transition has so far been less than smooth.

Numerous fusion center officials claim that although they get a lot of information from the government, they never seem to get the right data or get it in a timely manner, said a recent Congressional Research Service report, "Fusion Centers: Issues and Options for Congress."

Intelligence often must be requested by fusion centers, rather than federal agencies being proactive in providing it, the report said.

"On the federal side, there is often a distrust of state, local, tribal entities, a concern about the erosion of federal jurisdiction, and in some cases, a resistance to accepting an enhanced state and local role in some homeland security issues," the report said.

The relationship between local and federal officials can be tense because the locals were for years treated as inferior, and as an information source, not a consumer, the report continued.

Since 9/11, law enforcement has been referred to as "first responders," but Lanier argued that they should also be called "first preventers" to demonstrate their role in supporting counterterrorism efforts.

To enable both sides to perform their mission successfully, "there needs to be an organized, effective and trusting flow of information between our federal partners and local police," Lanier said.

Law enforcement wants detailed and specific data--in a timely manner--when it has safety implications for local communities, she continued.

Right now, information flow from the federal government to state and local fusion centers continues to be "largely reactive," leaving law enforcement with little or no time to prepare for an incident, CRS said.

"If we learn about a threat only when it becomes imminent, then it is too late," Lanier said.

Another roadblock to intelligence sharing is a lack of trust between the government and the private sector.

This is an important component because as Larence said, the private sector owns most of the critical infrastructure in this country.

When information is transferred across the public/private spectrum, people are scared of compromising sensitive knowledge.

"The trust factor is huge," said Tom Hall, global product manager for integration and service-oriented architecture at EDS, a technology services company. "The penalties for breaking privacy rules are big on the private side."

Furthermore, both the private sector and federal agencies are not currently given incentives to collaborate with fusion centers.

"People are not incentivized to share data, because there's a strong hammer that comes down if something important is compromised," said Jeff Conklin, chief information officer of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The absence of incentives to share was one of the 9/11 Commission's criticisms. Two bills pending before Congress address enhanced information sharing mechanisms, including non-monetary and monetary awards to federal employees who come forth with useful information, the report said.

Fusion centers need to analyze and process data from different sources, across agencies, in order to detect and deter a threat. To accomplish this goal, the issue of classification must also be solved.

As they stand today, fusion centers comprise personnel with all levels of classification. However, federal agencies have made an effort to provide clearances to more state and local personnel in recent years, CRS noted.

Following 9/11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was approving most clearances for state and local authorities. Between 2002 and 2005, the FBI authorized more than 6,000.

Today, DHS approves clearances for state and local officials and appears to be working faster than the FBI, the report said.

Yet challenges persist when trying to share intelligence at different classification levels and different agencies.

"Those who do not share information outside their agency may use the classification barrier ... as an excuse for failing to probatively share information," CRS said.

There is also the reciprocity challenge associated with security clearances, which means that if someone has a clearance from an agency outside of the one that owns the data, access can more easily be denied, the report said.

Information labeled "sensitive but unclassified," has created an even bigger headache for fusion center personnel, Larence said.

The GAO found that more than 50 different labels exist for such intelligence, which "complicates life for law enforcement," she said.

This problem became a disincentive for sharing between law enforcement and government. Since state and local personnel were unfamiliar with the different labels, there was concern about protecting the information, Larence explained.

A major effort is under way to correct this problem, she said. The Director for National Intelligence and DHS are looking for a way to consolidate and streamline the labels and find consistent ways to protect the knowledge.

The Director for National Intelligence expanded on the GAO's findings and found that there were 100 labels for sensitive but unclassified intelligence, Larence said.

The DNI has since submitted a new all-encompassing label to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, she continued.

DHS has created the homeland security information network [HSIN] and is developing the homeland security data network [HSDN] to share DHS and intelligence community information with law enforcement, first responders and the private sector, CRS said.

Several different portals are planned for the network that will be aimed at separate communities, Larence said. This could include critical infrastructure, intelligence and state and local law enforcement portals.

Improving the networks in which fusion center personnel work will give them better access to critical knowledge, officials said.

But addressing the political and cultural issues at fusion centers will not be as straightforward as fixing a technology problem. To define dear-cut roles and missions for personnel, CRS believes the government needs to develop a national fusion center strategy.

It argued that, "such a strategy would likely create coherence to what could be argued is currently a somewhat ad hoc and informal approach to fusion centers."

To implement such a strategy, the CRS recommended that the government decide who owns the centers, distinguish between federal, state and local roles, define an ultimate goal and establish the relationship between fusion centers and the Federal Intelligence Center, among others.

CRS noted that the national strategy would have to deal with several politically sensitive issues to effectively create a structure for fusion centers.

Yet tackling these challenges is necessary to developing a cohesive strategy, without which "fusion centers may have limited national impact," the report concluded.

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