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Information Sharing: The Federal Government Needs to Establish Policies and Processes for Sharing Terrorism-Related and Sensitive but Unclassified Information

NCJ Number
229046
Date Published
March 2006
Length
77 pages
Annotation
This report examines the status of efforts to establish governmentwide information-sharing policies and processes, as well as the universe of sensitive but unclassified designations used by the 26 agencies surveyed in this study and their related policies and procedures.
Abstract
The study found that some 4 years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Nation still lacks governmentwide policies and processes for helping agencies integrate the terrorism-related information collected through the multiple efforts of a variety of agencies. The agencies that the General Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed are using 56 different sensitive but unclassified designations (16 of which belong to 1 agency) in order to protect information they deem critical to their missions. There are no governmentwide policies or procedures that specify the criteria to be used by an agency in assigning a security designation to sensitive information for the purposes of sharing it with other agencies. Each agency determines what designations and associated policies to apply to the information it collects. More than half of the agencies surveyed reported challenges in sharing such information with other agencies. Most of the agencies have no policies for determining which and how many employees should have the authority to make sensitive but unclassified designations. Neither are employees provided training on this issue, nor are periodic reviews performed to determine how information-sharing practices are working. This results in either unnecessary restrictions on information that should be shared or the inadvertent release of materials that should be restricted. Based on its findings, the GAO recommends that the Director of National Intelligence assess progress, address barriers, and propose changes to facilitate uniform standards for information-sharing among agencies. Also, the Office of Management and Budget should work with agencies on policies, procedures, and controls for achieving more accountability in information-sharing. 2 tables and 4 appendixes with supplementary information on study objectives, scope, methodology, findings, and comments from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence