Post-Hearing Question From the May 8, 2003, Hearing on Barriers to Information Sharing at the Department of Homeland Security Page: 1 of 4
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AGAO
Accountability * Integrity * Reliability
United States General Accounting Office
Washington, DC 20548
July 7, 2003
The Honorable Tom Davis
Chairman, Committee on Government Reform
House of Representatives
Subject: Post-hearing Question From the May 8, 2003, Hearing on Barriers to
Information Sharing at the Department of Homeland Security
Dear Mr. Chairman:
As requested, this letter provides our response for the record to the question posed
by Representative Michael Turner to GAO, in your letter of June 13, 2003.
The GAO recently released a report on the sharing of terrorist watch lists
between federal, state, and local agencies (GAO-03-322). 1 The report
discussed the importance of an enterprise architecture that served all
agencies' needs. The report went on to discuss the role of database
architectures as an integral component of the overall enterprise architecture.
Specifically, the report pointed out the problems encountered unless data is
consolidated as opposed to relying on decentralized databases. The report
recommends that the agencies move to consolidate these watch lists.
While your report is specific to terrorist watch lists, I am interested in
whether you believe that the Department of Homeland Security should also
be consolidating other "stovepiped" databases in order to enable the
correlation of relationships in that data that can point to developing threats.
Can you comment on this?
Standardizing and consolidating stovepiped databases can offer significant benefits.
In particular, it can help reduce or eliminate duplicative data capture and storage and
enable faster data access and better data consistency, which can reduce costs as well
as improve data reliability and sharing. Analyzing these benefits in relation to
associated costs and risks, such as security and privacy, provides a basis for informed
decisions about not only consolidation but also the appropriate level of
consolidation. Effective development of enterprise architectures provides for
performing such analysis.
'U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: Terrorist Watch Lists Should Be
Consolidated to Promote Better Integration and Sharing, GAO-03-322 (Washington, D.C.: April 15,
2003).GAO-03-985R: Consolidated Databases Questions
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United States. General Accounting Office. Post-Hearing Question From the May 8, 2003, Hearing on Barriers to Information Sharing at the Department of Homeland Security, text, July 7, 2003; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc297195/m1/1/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.