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sharing network and $231 million spent, the program was only being used regularly by a fraction
of the universe of federal, state, and local officials and law enforcement representatives who
were intended to benefit from DHS’s information sharing network. 78 The DHS Inspector
General found that the HSIN had “35,560 active account holders nationwide,” as of October
2012, but that only 4 percent of these users logged in to the system on a daily basis. 79 Only 12
percent, or roughly 4,270 people, checked the system at least once a week. 80 Among the reasons
for the network’s limited use cited by state and local officials was that “the system content was
not useful.” 81
Besides these information sharing mechanisms, DHS’s intelligence mission was also
intended to provide utility for the federal government, state and local partners, and the private
sector by conducting analysis and reporting useful information and assessments about security
risks, including terrorism threats. But evidence casts doubt about the usefulness of the
Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) and its intelligence products. For
example, an analysis conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that in
2013, DHS had more analysts than finished intelligence products, meaning that DHS I&A
produced less than one product per analyst that year. 82 A June 2014 report by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) raised additional questions about the usefulness of the intelligence
that the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis’s does produce. Surveys revealed that three key
groups that I&A envisions to be the customers of its intelligence products—specifically, DHS’s
components, the Intelligence Community, and private critical infrastructure sector—did not
find I&A’s products to be useful. 83 GAO reported that the Department’s own components, for
example, “generally stated that they did not consider themselves customers of I&A with regard
to finished intelligence products.” 84
78 Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, “Homeland Security Information Network
Improvements and Challenges,” OIG 13-98, June, 2013.
79 Ibid, p.15-16.
80 Ibid, p.16.
81 Ibid, p.17.
82 Opening Statement of Senator Tom Coburn, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,
“Hearing on the Nominations of L. Reginald Brothers, Jr., to be Under Secretary of Science and Technology, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, and Hon. Francis X. Taylor to be Under Secretary of Intelligence and Analysis,
U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” March 5, 2014.
83 Government Accountability Office, “DHS Intelligence Analysis: Additional Actions Needed to Address Analytic
Priorities and Workforce Challenges,” GAO 14-397, June 2014.
84 Ibid, p.21.
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