Not Much Infrastructure Information Is Being Shared
Almost a year ago, OMB Watch filed a FOIA request to find out just how responsive private infrastructure owners were to the Department of Homeland Security’s Critical Infrastructure Information program – an offer of total confidentiality if they’d share data on vulnerabilities. DHS finally replied, acknowledging it had received only 29 reports on infrastructure vulnerabilities, and that it had accepted 22 of the reports as protected information. The DHS response came about the time Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Industry Association of America, said his industry was disregarding the CII program because of daunting paper work and a lack of confidence. And also about the time Comptroller General David M. Walker was telling a Senate subcommittee that the Government Accountability Office had determined that “many aspects of homeland security information sharing remain ineffective and fragmented” and that GAO had added it to its list of “high risk” areas that still face “formidable challenges.”