Bill Keating: “Thank you, Madam Chair; and thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger, for allowing me to present this timely amendment to the FY12…”

“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.…”