Experts urge more progress on homeland defense

Although government and the private sector have sought to improve coordination since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the federal government needs to do more to harness necessary technology and human capabilities to prevent future attacks, experts said Tuesday. "You can look all day, but if you don't know what you're looking for, at the end of the day, you're going to end up a loser," Mary Schiavo, former inspector general at the Transportation Department, said during an E-Gov homeland defense conference. She said "the biggest challenge" would be coordinating information systems among agencies like the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the CIA to help officials identify potential terrorists. Schiavo and other public-safety officials said the White House Office of Homeland Security needs more budget and veto authority to effectively coordinate homeland defense efforts. Several lawmakers on Capitol Hill have introduced legislation to that end, but President Bush convinced many to table their efforts and give new Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge time to craft his plan of action. "I would say absolutely that right now, the Office of Homeland Security is structured for failure," said Stephen Ryan, a partner with the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips law firm. "It's got to be about money and about the intranet capabilities of that office" to connect governments and the private sector. Mark Tanner, the FBI information resources manager, said although more agency networks are being interconnected, "we're not as technologically advanced as we'd like to be." Tanner also said human capability must be developed. George Foresman, Virginia's deputy state coordinator of emergency management, echoed that sentiment and said relationships among government agencies and departments is key to technology running smoothly. "We always come up with technology and try to have that solve our problems," he said. "We have got to harness those relationships before we harness the technology." Although many policymakers are focusing on failures that led to the Sept. 11 attacks, Tanner noted that officials also need to emphasize progress in areas such as increased connectivity and information sharing, and the development of public key infrastructure technologies that allow information to move quickly and securely through online to communicate future threats. One way to use technology to better track potential terrorists is a controversial national identification-card system, where information would be housed in a central database. Tanner said the current debate over the idea should be refocused on tracking non-citizens in the country as guests. Although consumer and privacy advocates object to privacy concerns giving way to national security desires, Tanner said, "There is a balance and there's going to be way of cutting it." He said that debate should "be at the front burner" in Congress next year. "I think we need to have the national will to open up the checkbooks" and invest in such systems, Tanner said. "I think IT and law enforcement is a significant responsibility of the U.S. government."