[IP] Dempsey and Louie: On a tightrope
Note: I am a member of the Task Force and
http://www.markle.org/markle_programs/policy_for_a_networked_society/nationa
l_security/index.php
djf
Dempsey and Louie: On a tightrope
Pair sought common ground between security, privacy
BY Florence Olsen
FCW, Published on Mar. 20, 2005
An unusual task force began meeting shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks. The group's members, known as the Markle Foundation Task
Force on National Security in the Information Age, were determined to find a
way to prevent such awful events from happening again.
Composed of about 50 prominent experts, the task force met frequently in
small groups and as a whole to analyze and discuss the problem with senior
Bush administration officials.
In December 2003, they offered a recommendation: Use network and database
technologies that are commercially available to reorganize the federal
government and eliminate the communication failures that allowed the 2001
attacks to happen.
With such a reorganization, federal and local authorities could finally
connect the dots about future terrorist plots and get information they need
to avert surprise attacks, the group argued.
The Markle Foundation's task force was not a typical one. Its members were
an unusual mix of national security, privacy and technology experts, many of
whom have government experience but now work in the private sector. Jim
Dempsey, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and
Technology, and Gilman Louie, president and chief executive officer of
In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm financed by the CIA, were among the leading
members.
The task force's work was influential. President Bush issued an executive
order in August 2004 requiring the creation of an information-sharing
network. Congress enacted intelligence reform legislation in December 2004,
incorporating the task force's ideas.
"Can you name any other private report that has been translated directly as
legislation?" asked Paul Rosenzweig, senior legal research fellow at the
Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "It is almost
impossible to think of a private organization that has had as much influence
on a substantive policy as the Markle Foundation has had on the
information-sharing network in the legislation."
In discussions that lasted sometimes for several days, Dempsey said, members
of the task force reached consensus on several compelling ideas that have
gained widespread, although not universal, acceptance. First among them is
the notion that federal officials should rely more on information technology
to safeguard national security.
"It's one of our strongest suits in fighting terrorism," Dempsey said,
adding that federal officials have not yet made good use of IT to prevent
future attacks.
Second, the task force said that federal agencies must protect people's
privacy as they try to strengthen national security in an age of terrorism.
An IT "program that does not respect privacy from inception is doomed to
fail," Dempsey said.
He cited as an example the brief existence of the Defense Department's Total
Information Awareness program, which lawmakers quickly cancelled. "The
public, the Congress, the executive branch will not tolerate, even in the
face of this serious threat, a program that intrudes upon privacy," Dempsey
said.
In addition, the group's members said technology can enforce government
policies automatically, without human intervention. "We now have the
capability to do that," Louie said.
The task force became a proponent of the idea that federal agencies could
reorganize their intelligence operations by utilizing powerful network and
database technologies. "For the first time, we can leverage the power of the
network," Louie said, "making it much harder for someone to attack this
country than if we were operating as separate, distinct organizations."
Many ideas from the task force originated with Louie and Dempsey. For
example, Louie contributed his know-how for designing and building
commercial technologies, Dempsey said.
Louie also brought a Silicon Valley perspective to the task force. In that
environment, business executives emphasize "collaboration, innovation,
flexibility and interoperability ? all of the things that are missing from
the governmental IT process," Dempsey said.
Other task force members echoed the view that Louie's unique perspective on
government IT derives from his experience as a venture capitalist for the
CIA.
"The CIA and intelligence community have the same IT problems that industry
is facing: managing vast amounts of data and creating secure
communications," said Jeffrey Smith, a senior partner in the law firm Arnold
and Porter, a member of the task force and a former CIA general counsel.
That means that commercial technologies developed for Citibank can solve the
CIA's problems, too, if they are put together the right way, Smith said.
Influenced by Louie's insights, the task force recommended the creation of a
virtual intelligence organization using an information-sharing network built
from commercially available network and database technologies.
As one of Louie's colleagues on the task force, Dempsey made contributions
of a different sort, said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State
University who was chief counselor for privacy during the Clinton
administration. Dempsey is one of the few privacy and civil liberties
experts who is also deeply knowledgeable about national security issues,
Swire said.
Because Dempsey stood behind the task force's proposal for a new
information-sharing network, Swire said, lawmakers were comfortable with the
idea. "Jim's support for the network probably made it easier for Congress to
accept that it would be done consistent with privacy," he said.
Although the task force's recommendations have been enacted into law, its
members have not quit working. Some of them remain busy trying to help Bush
administration and agency officials build the network that lawmakers asked
for in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.
Not everyone believes that it can be done, Smith said. "There are some
critics saying that we were dreamers and that the idea that we could create
this network and everything would magically fall in place is just silly," he
said.
Dempsey is convinced that the new law requiring an information-sharing
network is a sound one. And he is hopeful but not completely certain that
such a network will be built. In the context of the new law, he said, "there
is still some resistance, some confusion within the executive branch about
what sharing means."
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