FEMA outlines e-government goals
The technology chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday outlined several initiatives that his department is working on to aid the implementation of the Bush administration's e-government plan.
The White House has identified 24 e-government initiatives for the Office of Management and Budget to spearhead under the president's management agenda. OMB has directed federal agencies to streamline their programs and use technology to make their government services more accessible.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks underscored the need for the federal government to provide fast and easy access to disaster-related information to citizens, FEMA Chief Information Officer Ron Miller said at a conference sponsored by E-Gov. He noted that FEMA's Web site received 3.5 million hits soon after the attacks.
To better aid the public, FEMA has established Disasterhelp.gov, a site designed to serve as a one-stop portal for citizens to obtain disaster-relief information and assistance, Miller said.
FEMA has specific e-government projects it must finish to reach its government management goals. They include modernizing the National Emergency Management Information System, establishing publicly accessible map services on the Web, and placing registration and information forms for Bush's Citizen Corps program on the Web. Enhancing distance-learning programs also is part of the agenda. Disasterhelp.gov will consolidate federal and other disaster-relief programs under one portal and provide links to state and local emergency-management groups.
The site will require a secure network for information sharing and an automated transaction-processing system to deal with disaster-relief transactions. It also will require a database to serve as an information repository.
Miller stressed that FEMA does not want to put large batches of personalized information into a centralized database--an idea that privacy advocates heavily criticized during debates over a national identification system tied to such a database.
Meanwhile, Eligibility Assistance Online, a program currently under FEMA's purview that aids in citizens' disaster benefits, will be moved to the Labor Department.
Miller said state and local CIOs will work with FEMA on various e-government initiatives to aid the homeland security effort. Such initiatives include online loan applications, e-grants and e-authentication, the latter being a requirement for most e-government initiatives underway in all agencies, Miller said, given the vast amounts of information being put on the Web.
"There are a lot more privacy issues out there than there were before so many government services were online," Miller said.
A key priority for FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh, Miller said, is creating a public-safety wireless network, which is the "single-most critical information technology need." "First responders" to emergencies and government officials have said they need access to a priority network to effectively communicate with each other during emergencies.
"Whatever the solution is, we've got to solve it and solve it now," Miller said.