Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Madam Chair; and thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger, for allowing me to present this timely amendment to the FY12 Intelligence authorization.

Madam Chair, there are 72 fusion centers throughout the United States, including one in Massachusetts, which is also the home of the sole joint terrorism task force that is housed in an airport. However, as noted yesterday by Mr. Lee Hamilton, vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, during the Committee on Homeland Security hearing, which dealt with looking back 10 years after 9/11, all 72 fusion centers have varying degrees of quality, and this results in gaps in communication. Gaps in sharing, such as agencies' failure to link information about the individual who attempted the December 25, 2009, airline bombing, prevented him from being included in the Federal Government's terrorist watch list, a tool used by DHS to screen for persons who pose a significant security threat.

This week, the GAO released a report to the Department of Homeland Security recommending that DHS improve its assistance and services to State and local homeland security partners and streamline some of the information-sharing mechanisms.

Furthermore, in July 2011, DHS reported that it established performance measures for assessing its information-sharing efforts. These measures include, for example, the percent of intelligence reports customers rated as satisfactory, enabling customers to anticipate emergency threats.

DHS plans to report on these metrics beginning in fiscal year 2012. While these are positive steps, GAO's work has shown that developing outcome-based performance measures that gauge information-sharing efforts are really necessary to strengthen the accountability of these efforts, and we are still waiting for DHS to implement these steps.

Now, as a former district attorney of over a decade, I understand how critical it is to share information and how not sharing that information enhances and enables critical activity. That, indeed, carries over to terrorists themselves.

This amendment encourages this type of streamlining process by further integrating and leveraging fusion centers to enlist all the intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security capabilities in the United States in a manner that's consistent with the Constitution to prevent acts of terrorism against the United States of America. It was just a few months ago that Secretary Napolitano in testimony before the Homeland Security Committee said that the threat of terrorism is at its most heightened state since 9/11. That's what she's saying now.

So I encourage all Members to vote for this amendment, as well as the manager's amendment, to strengthen this bill and incorporate all the elements of the intelligence community, particularly trying to merge information, enhance sharing of information with State and local officials who have their ear to the ground.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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