NCJ Number
241542
Date Published
March 2013
Length
68 pages
Annotation
In 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and its Federal partners developed the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI) in order to establish a capability for collecting and sharing terrorism-related suspicious activity. This report by the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) examines the Initiative's progress and performance.
Abstract
Stakeholders generally reported that the NSI process is working well; however, formalizing mechanisms to provide stakeholders with feedback on the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) they submit and informing them of these mechanisms would be consistent with the recommendation of the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE) and could assist in ensuring that stakeholders receive the information they need to enforce SAR policies designed to protect privacy, maintain situational awareness, conduct accurate analyses, and motivate personnel to continue to report SARs. In addition, maintaining two systems for sharing ISE-SARs introduces risks identified by FBI officials that not all ISE-SAR information that should be shared is being shared or that the information that is shared remains complete and accurate when transferred between systems. The FBI and NSI Program Management Office (PMO) have not identified the barriers that may prevent all ISE-SARs submitted to Shared Spaces from also being submitted to eGuardian or tested the interconnection between their respective systems to help ensure that the automatic exchange of ISE-SARs between the systems is complete and accurate. In addition, although the PMO assesses training for analysts and makes needed improvements based on assessment results, it has not developed or leveraged existing mechanisms for assessing line officer training. Finally, the PMO has taken steps to collect some data on the NSI, but the PMO must develop a performance management plan that includes measures for assessing what difference the ISE-SARs are making in terms of countering threats. 7 tables, 3 figures, and appended scope and methodology, other supplementary information, and comments on this evaluation from stakeholders