DHS Steps Up Information Sharing

State and local governments just may enjoy greater access to federal information, if recommendations from an interagency task force actually get implemented.

Led by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder, the Presidential Interagency Task Force on Controlled Unclassified Information released a report recommending a "single, standardized framework for making, safeguarding and disseminating sensitive but unclassified information." This would expand the existing framework established in 2008 for sharing of only terrorism-related information.

The framework would predominantly serve federal agencies, but dual program offices will be stood up to coordinate information sharing between federal, state, local and tribal agencies and the private sector, Napolitano and Holder announced.

In terms of how sensitive but unclassified information is managed, the task force concluded that "Executive Branch performance suffers immensely from interagency inconsistency in policies, frequent uncertainty as to exactly what policies apply, and the inconsistent application of similar policies across agencies." The absence of effective training, oversight, and accountability at many agencies also results in a tendency to over-protect information, greatly diminishing government transparency, according to the report.

The task force proposed 40 recommendations to "enhance standardization, information sharing, government transparency, and the protection of information only where there is a compelling requirement to do so."

In a separate announcement, DHS launched a partnership with Michigan to deploy Einstein -- the federal government's automated system to monitor online activity and collect, correlate, analyzes and share information. While DHS is in the process of finalizing development of Einstein 3, Michigan will deploy the first version of the system to monitor the state's computer networks.

The goal, said Napolitano and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm in prepared statements, is to enhance the protection of networks and cyber assets nationwide and enable greater federal and state coordination in cybersecurity efforts.