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 COLUMN
Measure twice I HAVE MIXED feelings concerning the plan for a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. Like the little girl of the nursery rhyme, when it's good, it's very, very good, and when it's bad, it's horrid.
The grab-bag nature of the new department also leads me to believe that the architects of the plan haven't thought things through. It sounds great to tell Americans that the department will include the Coast Guard and the Secret Service, to name two of the most prominent divisions planned for transfer. But I wonder what the Department of Homeland Security is going to do with lighthouses, maritime rescue, and schoolchildren augmenting allowances by using color copiers to counterfeit currency. I'm also concerned because indications are that the new department will rely on the CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency for intelligence. Sept. 11 should have reminded everyone in the security community about our dependence on timely analysis. The current squabble over who failed to "connect the dots" mostly misses the point. The problem is that our government collects more data than it can handle, and the plan for a Department of Homeland Security does nothing to fix this situation. But parts of the proposal are long overdue. For example, pulling together the various bodies that oversee critical pieces of national infrastructure -- including communications and the Internet -- could be beneficial, assuming that the five or six bodies become one, or two at the most. Faithful readers -- and I know you're out there -- will remember that last year I called for removing the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) from the FBI's control (see "Federal insecurities"). Add to this the various cyberdefense components of the General Services Administration, the Commerce Department, and the rest of the civilian government, and we might finally have an effective response to the threat of cyberterrorism. But ultimately, the government's role in cybersecurity pales beside that of private industry and individual end-users. That's not just me talking, that's from NIPC honcho Richard Clarke. I only wish that the much-vaunted effectiveness and efficiency of private enterprise could be more closely applied to securing information resources instead of restating quarterly results. The current plan for reorganizing the government's homeland security effort addresses only a small part of the much bigger problem. I'd feel a lot safer if the changes were made in a sensible fashion instead of moving some boxes around on an organization chart and calling it " security." P.J. Connolly (pj_connolly@infoworld.com) covers collaboration and security for the InfoWorld Test Center and knows the perils of information overload.  RELATED SUBJECTS  SecurityMORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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