Homeland Security Intelligence and Information Sharing

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and the private sector. Some state and local agencies have opportunities and capabilities that are not possessed by federal agencies in which they can gather information on suspicious activities and terrorist threats. By working together, the various levels of government can maximize the benefits and advantages of gathering, sharing, and analyzing information to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.

Research Question

To what extent are the Department of Homeland Security efforts associated with its Homeland Security information network being coordinated with key state and local information sharing initiatives?

Research Hypothesis

The frequency of homeland security information sharing use will influence awareness of homeland security threats, the perceived level of organization preparedness, and the ability to prevent homeland security emergencies.

Literature Review

Sharing information among the federal, state, and local agencies is the critical element of the Unites States homeland security strategy. Logan and Ramsay (2012), wrote that 9/11 is a day of tragedy that will never be forgotten and the question that followed was how our intelligence and defense system had failed to protect us. This question continues to resonate because inadequate information sharing by federal entities was a major factor in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

September 11 Attacks

During the summer of 2001, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents were in the process of trying to locate the suspected al Qaeda operative Khalid al-Mihdhar, when Agent Bongardt, who was working another case, received an email communication from an intelligence official with the bureau stating al-Mihdar might have entered the United States. Bongardt reached out to find out more about this email and was told to delete it because this information was sent to him by accident. Bongardt was infuriated and sent an email stating “Whatever has happened to this, someday somebody will die- and wall or not, the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems” (Sales, 2010). Just a few weeks after this incident, Khalid al-Mihdar helped hijack American Airlines Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon.

There continues to be the enduring mystery of 9/11 and why the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not share any of the information with the FBI or any other agencies about the arrival of suspected terrorists in the Unites States in 2000. According to Stein (2015), the CIA learned about al Qaeda operative Khalid al-Mihdhar having a multi-entry visa on a Saudi passport to enter the United States. They also knew about the arrival of Nawaf al Hazim; another key operative of al-Qaeda and future hijacker, the agency had been tracking to and from a terrorist summit in Malaysia. FBI agent Miller and Rossini were assigned to the Alec Station (cover name for the CIA’s Osama Bin Laden Unit) and drafted a report for FBI headquarters to provide them with this information. The agents were quickly told to hold off providing this information and when/if they wanted the FBI to know about it, they would tell them (Stein, 2015). To this date, former FBI agent Rossini regrets obeying this gag order because of the possibility that nearly 3,000 people would still be alive had he disobeyed his command.

Underwear Bomber

In November of 2009, Alhaji Mutallab went to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria concerned about his son Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who had traveled to Yemen because of his radical Islamic beliefs and sent a message to his father to never contact him again. Alhaji wanted to go to Yemen to retrieve his son, but the government would not grant him a visa, so he decided to reach out to the U.S. Government and warn officials about his son and ask for help finding him. He met with CIA personnel and provided them with information about his son, and this information was disseminated within the U.S. intelligence community (Givens and Busch, 2013). Even with this information and the possibility of Umar’s link to Islamic extremists, he was not placed on a no-fly list or the transportation watch list.

Roughly a month after this information was received, Umar boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 that was traveling from Amsterdam and bound for Detroit, Michigan with approximately 289 people on the airplane. Umar used his visa, paid for his ticket in cash and passed through several security points in the airport, all while concealing a mixture of high explosives in his underwear (Givens and Busch, 2013). Umar planned to use a syringe and inject a special liquid into his underwear to detonate the explosives. As airline flight 253 approached Detroit, Umar injected the special liquid which caused a loud pop sound, but the explosives did not detonate properly and just caught his pants and underwear on fire. Flight personnel put out the fire and held Umar until the plane landed.

According to Givens and Busch (2012), the underwear bomber incident occurred over eight years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but the parallels between the failures of information sharing are strikingly similar. Prior to the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government agencies did not exchange pieces of information in their possession that could have pointed towards an imminent attack in the United States if properly integrated and analyzed. This also holds true for the underwear bomber plot in which multiple U.S. agencies had access to bits of information which should have led them to place Umar on the no-fly list; which did not happen. This information was not effectively communicated by U.S. government officials to private sector commercial airlines about the potential threat that certain individuals posed, in 9/11, nineteen would be hijackers, and in the underwear bomber case, Umar himself (Givens and Busch, 2013).

Boston Marathon Bombings

April 15, 2013, is another day that will forever be marred in our minds, and although the post 9/11 mindset produced information sharing initiatives, the policies and guidelines did not go far enough to ensure federal agencies would share information with local and state agencies (Garber, 2015). On this date, 23,000 runners participated in the Boston Marathon and after about three-quarters of the runners crossed the finish line, two pressure cookers exploded instantly killing three people and injuring more than a hundred. Law enforcement officials quickly name Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, Chechen brothers, as the lead suspects.

This event is another example that shows improvements in information sharing are needed because there were events leading