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Dots Connected
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by YankeeJim | January 8, 2010 at 07:04 am
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I read Eugene Robinson’s column in the Washington Post today and he provided the missing link for what I want to talk about. I think Robinson is the Post’s best journalist these days, so I am pleased to highlight his being an inspiration to thoughtful analysis of the US counterterrorism strategy, and much more.
The issues of data sharing and data deficiencies in government are not new. When President Obama initiated the “.gov” (dot gov) program resulting in making the departments and agencies fall into a more coherent manner on the web, it was a positive indication that the IT savvy President would leave his mark.
However, other deficiencies in the President’s management approach cause potential for improvement to fall short. For instance, the President lacks as smart data strategy and is not leveraging the benefits of more modern model-driven management. I know that I am just throwing out new terms, but I am doing so to beg people to ask more questions.
One cannot manage the government enterprise optimally without knowing the data essential for doing this. One cannot manage the government enterprise optimally without knowing the processes essential for providing the “how to” for achieving stated outcomes and desired accomplishments. Knowing the data and knowing the processes are truth detectors for the President and his entire management team.
Connecting the dots may not be the best metaphor as Robinson says. Merely associating data facts and aggregating them to higher order meaning is not the complete story either. Making the management of data facts and interpretation a higher order responsibility than the individual departments and agencies that create them is the right path, I believe.
Data security, data access, credentialing and privileging needs be an executive level that provides management oversight over all data such that the process enables qualified individuals access to what they need.
Part of the stovepiping of data problem begins when Congress legislate stovepipe creation. I think they create problems about which they are unaware, or about which they underestimate the consequences.
This is such a big topic that I wrote a book about it.
“A counterterrorism strategy that needs fewer dots
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, January 8, 2010
"Connecting the dots" is a lousy metaphor that creates unrealistic expectations. The phrase suggests that the only thing our intelligence analysts have to do is draw a line from the point labeled "1" to the point labeled "2" and so on, and soon they're looking at the unmistakable outline of a terrorist plot. In reality, though, the page is so crowded with dots that they almost touch. Most are irrelevant, and not a single one is numbered.
The clues that would have alerted authorities to the Christmas Day underwear bomber were buried under mountains of intelligence data. Gathering pertinent information is a challenge, but in this case that challenge was met. What the system failed to do was manage the data well enough for the right bits and pieces to be picked out.
It seems to me that as President Obama tries to minimize the possibility that the next Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab might succeed in blowing an airliner out of the sky, the focus shouldn't be on shuffling boxes around an organizational chart. It should be on finding a better way to inventory and collate what we already know.
Abdulmutallab's name was in a database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center that lists 550,000 terrorism-related "entities." This is almost the same as being completely anonymous, since a list that long is hardly a practical tool -- and indeed, his inclusion didn't keep Abdulmutallab off that Detroit-bound flight or even flag him for enhanced screening. Being listed seems to mean little more than being listed.”
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 07:58 on January 8th, 2010
Thanks for your article.
President Obama did not invent the *.gov extension, it had been in place for years. The extension has been used by local, state, and national government for at least 10 years. President Obama has used the extension well in some of his transparency efforts like recovery.gov.
Mr. Robinson a native of Orangeburg, SC is less of a journalist and more of a opinion writer. His articles are obvious left leaning. He is more of a commentator these days like the right leaning Sean Hannity of Fox. This is not to say he is not talented, the opposite is true. He is very well versed in US Politics.
The data on the attacks could have been integrated into a database that searches for links or 'connecting dots'. We are in a time where one can get information on any Americans identity for a mere ten dollars. The government has greater ability to do so. President Obama was correct in stating that there was a 'systemic' failure.
I think we have agencies who are still reluctant to integrate information between agencies. The mind set of the information gatherer is what needs to be changed. Calls to fire folks is misguided as the low level information gathers need to change their ideas about information sharing and integrating information in databases that do info connections. Anyone who has done basic statistics knows that there are programs that look for links in information. It is time for the security and Intel folks to input basic information and share that data throughout the Intel agencies It is not that difficult.
at 08:14 on January 8th, 2010
This is a response about which I agree completely. Yes, Eugene is left leaning. I am ambidextrous.