[Infowarrior] - TSA Struggling with Œ Stovepiped ¹ Information Infrastructure

[Richard Forno]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2008/January/SecurityBeat.htm#
TSA

TSA Struggling with ŒStovepiped¹ Information Infrastructure

Baggage ClaimAnyone who has followed the Defense Department¹s never-ending
struggle to allow its disparate communications systems to link to each other
knows what the term ³stovepiped² means.

Different systems used by different services built by different contractors
are not able to share information.

The Transportation Security Administration ‹ starting with a clean slate in
2001 ‹ could have avoided these pitfalls, but instead chose ad hoc
technologies that resulted in a wasteful, inefficient information backbone,
according to a Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report.

Part of the blame falls on Congress and the tight deadlines it imposed in
the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the report said.

³Due to time constraints, TSA¹s technical environment evolved in a
decentralized manner, leading to stovepiped systems with limited information
sharing and technical standards,² the report said.

For example, performance data on airport baggage screeners and metal
detectors must be collected from every machine once per hour. Each system
has its own way of collecting, storing and downloading data. A TSA staff
member must take this data, write a daily report and e-mail or fax the
information to TSA headquarters. The process is ³cumbersome, time consuming
and labor intensive,² the report said.

TSA concurred with the report¹s findings and spelled out plans to address
some of the issues. The report warned that TSA will have to beef up its
hiring to effectively get a handle on the problem.

³The declining number of staff within the central IT division also impedes
the [chief information officer¹s] ability to manage the IT infrastructure
and support new technology requirements.²