DHS will need modern technology and a collaborative culture to succeed

President Bush's announcement of a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on 6 June focused largely on the rearrangement of organizational-chart boxes, with the pieces of 22 agencies combined into the new DHS superstructure. But as the early analyses and reactions point out, moving the boxes is the easy part. Getting a technical infrastructure and management culture that encourage the sharing of knowledge promises to be much tougher.

Gartner identified potential roadmap

The technology research company Gartner Inc released a report soon after the announcement that had mixed reactions to the reorganization. Gartner's analysts French Caldwell and John Pescatore described some advantages of reorganization. For example, the new DHS will have cabinet status, unlike the White House Office of Homeland Security -- its predecessor led by Governor Tom Ridge - and thus should have much more of the clout needed to secure and control its own resources. DHS will need that clout to change government processes, to get the information needed to do its job. Even with 22 former agencies under its wing, DHS will still need to rely on and coordinate a lot of activities across the Federal bureaucracy.

The most talked-about collaboration DHS will need is with the intelligence agencies, specifically the FBI and CIA. Caldwell and Pescatore say that DHS will need to join in an integrated intelligence process to shorten the time needed to reach intelligence findings. The analysts say that DHS will also need to establish collaborative relationships with semi-governmental think tanks, like Rand Corporation and Anser Analytic Services. But just establishing the linkages is not enough. DHS needs to establish collaboration at all stages and levels of the intelligence process: generation of requirements, collection, processing, analysis, review, distribution and use.

XML can provide the tools

The technology exists to help make this collaboration happen. On 7 June, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) urged the Bush Administration to make good use of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and Web services using XML to improve communications in the new DHS. The ITAA announcement noted that businesses involved in mergers have used this technology effectively, and DHS should do the same.

Federal agencies are no strangers to XML, and as we have noted here before, some agencies have begun making use of XML Web services; see our story of 20 December 2001, Closing the gap between standards and government IT, http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1081... . But the government as a whole so far has not developed a comprehensive strategy on XML. In April, the General Accounting Office criticized the haphazard approach on XML taken by the government, where individual agencies have adopted the use of XML to meet their own internal needs, but with little guidance or coordination from the central agencies charged with providing this leadership.

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