Enterprise approach best for fighting terrorism

The federal government can increase the effectiveness of efforts to combat terrorism by taking an enterprise approach to information technology planning, according to the Information Technology Association of America.

The Arlington, Va.-based ITAA released a series of recommendations March 28 aimed at helping the Immigration and Naturalization Service and other government agencies battle terrorism through the use of integrated information technology.

INS Commissioner James Ziglar sent the ITAA recommendations March 1 to Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.

The nine recommendations are:

*Use federal enterprise planning to develop interagency/extra-agency business needs to counter terrorist-based threats;
*Establish an authority to manage this effort;
*Define the federal enterprise;
*Develop and record the business objectives of the federal enterprise;
*Identify data required to support these processes;
*Develop and maintain a quick inventory of existing interagency projects or projects that could be leveraged by agencies while the management and administrative structures for the federal enterprise are being put in place;
*Work with the administration to examine federal budget mechanisms that will support these federal enterprise projects;
*Establish and maintain common project management structures and reporting so that interagency IT issues will become standardized for federal enterprise projects along with commonly understood measures, roles, responsibilities, schedules and costs;
*Identify a legal review and policy group to support federal enterprise projects.

ITAA member firms and various law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been working on the recommendations since they first met in November 2001.

The recommendations are set forth in a white paper available on the ITAA Web site at http://www.itaa.org/infosec/pubs/whitepaper.pdf.