Key lawmakers urge more data sharing at borders

Senior members of the House Homeland Security Committee are calling for more information sharing among federal, state and local law enforcers in order to improve border security.

Committee ranking Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi on Wednesday asked the Government Accountability Office to review how information sharing is working among the federal government and law enforcers in border communities.

"The development of border intelligence based on information sharing among the state, local and tribal stakeholders from states along the borders would be a valuable tool to ensure resource allocation decisions are made based on a sound understanding of the risks posed," Thompson wrote to GAO.

"Input from states along the borders is also critical to achieving coordinated and collaborative preparation to respond to threats emanating at the borders, but these stakeholders currently have no effective mechanism to share information about border security in their particular areas."

Thompson asked GAO to review: how law enforcement and homeland security officers define the types of information they need from federal agencies to target their resources most effectively; which federal agencies are playing, or need to play, roles in providing information to border communities; what types of information products agencies are providing to border communities and to what extent those products meet community needs; and what else federal agencies can do to fill information gaps.

"This committee recognizes that we have limited and competing resources for this homeland security vulnerability and that we thus need to use those resources most effectively, addressing the highest-risk border vulnerabilities first," Thompson said.

In a separate but related action, Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, released a report Tuesday that cites growing violence along the southwest border.

The report concludes, in part, that "immediate action be taken" to increase security along the border by "improving partnerships and information-sharing among federal, state and local law enforcement." It also calls for "building a secure interoperable communications network for Border Patrol and state and local law enforcement."

"The federal government has taken positive steps to secure its borders, but much more is needed to combat an increasingly powerful, sophisticated, and violent criminal network which has been successful in smuggling illegal contraband, human or otherwise, into our country," the report added. "The growth of these criminal groups, along the southwest border, and the potential for terrorists to exploit the vulnerabilities which they create, represents a real threat to America's national security."