[Infowarrior] - Technical Flaws Hinder Terrorist Watch List;

[Richard Forno]

Releases  ::  August 21, 2008
Technical Flaws Hinder Terrorist Watch List; Congress Calls for  
Investigation

http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=2289

(Washington, DC) – Today, the Chairman of the House Science and  
Technology Committee’s Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee sent  
a letter to the Inspector General of the Office of the Director of  
National Intelligence (ODNI) requesting an investigation of the  
technical failure and mismanagement of one of the government’s most  
important counterterrorism programs.

The "Railhead" program was intended to improve the terrorist watch  
list and enhance the integration of U.S. terrorist intelligence from  
the nation’s 16 separate intelligence agencies as recommended by the  
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States or  
9.11 Commission. In addition, it was supposed to provide an integrated  
information infrastructure that government counterterrorism analysts  
could rely on to identify current and future terrorist threats and  
possibly predict and prevent the next terrorist attack. Situated at  
the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) the "Railhead" program was  
the celebrated superstar of the NCTC’s most promising and important  
counterterrorism programs.

Yet the program appears to be on the brink of collapse after an  
estimated half-billion dollars in taxpayer funding has been spent on  
it. In recent weeks, the majority of more than 800 private contractors  
from dozens of companies working on Railhead have been laid off. Only  
a few dozen reportedly remain. Government managers, who were supposed  
to be providing vigilant oversight and clear direction on Railhead,  
finally realized that technical problems identified many months ago  
were insurmountable. Officials at NCTC drastically curtailed the  
troubled program last week and have implemented a major reorganization  
of Railhead to help repair the technical design flaws and improve  
government oversight. A Subcommittee staff memo to Chairman Miller  
detailed many of these problems.

"This is a critical national security program that has been plagued by  
technical design and development errors, basic management blunders and  
poor government oversight," said Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC). "The  
program not only can’t connect the dots, it can’t find the dots."

Railhead was intended to update and enhance the National  
Counterterrorism Center’s terrorist intelligence database called TIDE  
or Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment that provided the  
backbone of the FBI’s consolidated terrorist watch list. It was also  
supposed to improve two related information technology programs at the  
NCTC, TIDE Online (TOL), an unclassified version of the TIDE database  
and NCTC Online (NOL), a classified repository of terrorist  
information and finished intelligence reports from across the  
government’s intelligence community that is accessible to  
counterterrorism analysts.

The Railhead program had been undergoing an internal technical  
implosion for more than one year. But public statements and sworn  
public testimony to Congress from senior officials within the NCTC and  
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) never  
revealed the mounting technical troubles, poor contractor management  
or lax government oversight that appears to have been endemic  
throughout the program and has led to Railhead’s colossal failure.  
Astoundingly, the Director of NCTC and the Director of National  
Intelligence have both specifically pointed to TIDE and NCTC Online as  
hallmarks of the government’s information sharing accomplishments.

Last February, the Director of National Intelligence, J. M. McConnell  
and his Chief Information Officer, Dale Meyerrose, issued a report  
outlining the U.S. Intelligence Community’s "Information Sharing  
Strategy." The report emphasized that "time is of the essence" in  
improving information sharing among intelligence agencies and said:  
"The tragic events of September 11, 2001, demonstrated that the United  
States needed greater integration across the Intelligence Community  
and improved information sharing to respond to evolving threats and to  
support new homeland security customers."

Furthermore, it boasted, "NCTC has developed innovative solutions,  
including NCTC Online and Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment,  
to increase information sharing and collaboration in support of the  
counterterrorism mission."

Yet internal Railhead documents paint a very different and troubling  
picture of these programs. Not only do existing technical impediments  
drastically hinder the ability of the current TIDE database to operate  
effectively and efficiently, but the planned design and development  
upgrade to TIDE, Tide Online and NCTC Online have come under intense  
criticism within the Railhead program. This analysis has shown that  
the planned upgrades to these programs would actually diminish not  
improve their capabilities, limiting the ability to share terrorist  
intelligence data among federal agencies and crippling the ability of  
counterterrorism analysts to conduct searches of these databases.

Most disturbingly, the Subcommittee understands that tens of thousands  
of potentially vital CIA messages flowing into NCTC have not been  
properly processed, reviewed or included in the existing TIDE  
database. As a result, it is impossible to tell if critical terrorist  
intelligence sits in a U.S. government file somewhere that has not  
been properly vetted, distributed or pursued. Similar government  
failures occurred before the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center  
and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It is imperative that  
current technical problems on the TIDE database be identified and  
corrected before enhancements are made to other NCTC information  
systems.

"The collapse of the Railhead program appears to be the result of poor  
technical planning and design, potential contractor mismanagement and  
inadequate government oversight," said Miller. "These same problems  
have emerged again and again on government programs as millions of  
dollars in taxpayer funding is squandered. At some point the  
government needs to learn how to manage its technology programs so  
that they actually perform as advertised. This episode is particularly  
disturbing since we are talking about the safety and security of 300  
million American citizens," Miller added. "I have asked the Inspector  
General to investigate this program thoroughly and recommend potential  
lessons learned for future government programs. We can’t just keep  
making the same mistakes again and again."

For more information or to view the letter please visit the  
Committee’s website.