According to a new report from the bipartisan Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, the same problem that plagued the US intelligence system on 9/10/2001—the inability to connect crucial bits of information that could warn of an impeding terrorist attack—continues to plague the US intelligence system today, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The task force, which consists of 40 current and former security officials from both the government and private sector, has been studying information sharing within the intelligence committee since 2002. Their findings? “Today, we are still vulnerable to attack because—as on 9/11—we are still not able to connect the dots. At the same time, civil liberties are at risk because we don’t have the government-wide policies in place to protect them as intelligence collection has expanded.”
What we have, then, is the worst of all possible scenarios. The government has given itself broader powers to collect intelligence—to spy on people, in the name of national security. Yet at the same time, the government has failed to implement systems which can actually analyze all the gathered intelligence on a higher, meaningful level. In effect, then, the government is trampling on the rights and civil liberties of Americans for no particular gain whatsoever. What good is collecting reams and reams of data if you don’t have the power, the ability, or the inclination to derive anything from it?
Once again, what passes for business as usual in the government sector sounds patently absurd to those of us in the private sector—especially those of us in technology. We know, instinctually, that there is no reason whatsoever to collect data if you’re not going to use it—via a tool like Makibie Connect—to inform, iterate, and improve your offerings in the future. Without a way to analyze, interpret, and act upon data, what good is data at all? Why go through the trouble—and the expense—of collecting it, if you’re not going to use it?
The Markle task force recommends that the Obama administration order a high-level review that focuses on integrating all threat information, not just terrorism tips. It also recommends the information-sharing office that reports to President Obama through his National Security Advisor be collocated to the White House, to give it more prominence. The task force suggests that strong programs must be in place to protect individual privacy as well, including automatic auditing of whoever accesses certain information, and what is done with it.
It sounds like pretty basic stuff, and it’s staggering that the federal government still doesn’t “get it”—or, more eerily, refuses to “get it.”