For all the nation has invested in national security in the last several years, we remain vulnerable to terrorist attack and emerging national security threats because we have not adequately improved our ability to know what we know about these threats. Today, we are still vulnerable to attack because 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.
Old habits die hard. The "need to know" principle and stovepiping of information within agencies persist. The adoption of the "need to share" principle and the responsibility to provide information, and actions to transform the culture through metrics and incentives, are necessary to the success of the information sharing framework. In addition, those who depend on information to make decisions and accomplish their mission must be empowered to drive information sharing, to ensure they get the best possible data.
