Police Chiefs Criticize Homeland Security
Police chiefs of some of the country's largest cities are complaining that Homeland Security is not living up to its promise to share terror-related information with them. It's causing a "growing rift" and some departments are threatening to pull out of the HSA program.
In a report released this week, the homeland-security department's inspector general, Richard Skinner, said that the department's computer network designed to pool information on terrorist threats for police and other federal agencies has been ignored by many of its intended users.
The Homeland Security Information Network, or HSIN, was set up to share secret information with as many as 600 federal, state and local agencies at a cost of $337 million. The department described it as its "backbone" for dealing with national emergencies and terrorist threats. But the report found that officials across the country "are confused and frustrated, without clear guidance on [the network's] role or how to use the system to share information effectively."
Among those complaining: LA Police Chief Bill Bratton:
Police chiefs said in interviews that they felt that the Department of Homeland Security treated them as second-class partners. William Bratton, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said: "We have been frustrated with the quality and timeliness of the information we have been getting from Homeland Security for some time."
...Bratton said it's vital that the federal government share information with local police, who are in the position to pick up local threats first. "There is always going to be some information that can't be disseminated -- nobody disputes that -- but there is the strong belief that there is more information that can be shared now faster. And it has to happen," Chief Bratton said.
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