SiliconBeat

Last September, an “expert” task force of the Department of Homeland Security recommended the establishment of “an integrated operations center” designed to better plan for and respond to disruption on converged voice and data networks in the United States.

But the DHS has so far implemented only one of the three specific coordination recommendations made by its own experts, according to a report Thursday the Government Accountability Office gave to Congress, and doesn’t seem in a hurry to fulfill the other two. In November it moved its “operations center for communications infrastructure” next door to its “center for data and applications,” allowing them “to more readily collaborate on planned and ongoing activities,” including using common software tools to identify and share physical, telecommunications, and cyber information.

However, the DHS has yet to take two other steps its own experts say it should, and doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to adopt them, either. The DHS has yet to actually merge the two centers organizationally, nor has it invited “key private sector officials” to participate in the planning, monitoring, and other activities of the proposed joint operations center, according to the GAO.

“A key factor contributing to DHS’s lack of progress in implementing the latter two steps is that completing the integration has not been a top DHS priority,” wrote the GAO. “Instead, DHS officials stated that their efforts have been focused on other initiatives, most notably the President’s recently announced cyber initiative,” a government-wide effort to “manage the risks associated with the Internet’s non-secure external connections.”

So priority is being given to an effort to cut down the number of places the government delivers timely information and services to the public.

The GAO says that DHS officials have indicated they are “in the process” of drafting a plan to accomplish the last two steps, something it has been doing for about a year, but that they “could not provide a date for when it would be finalized.”

“Until DHS completes the integration of the two centers,” the GAO concludes, “it risks being unable to efficiently plan for and respond to disruptions to communications infrastructure and the data and applications that travel on this infrastructure, increasing the probability that communications will be unavailable or limited in times of need.”