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ONE FIGHT, ONE TEAM: THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE, FRAGMENTATION AND INFORMATION
Author(s) -
BRUIJN HANS DE
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2006.00002.x
Subject(s) - commission , fragmentation (computing) , incentive , information sharing , business , computer security , redundancy (engineering) , terrorism , subject matter , risk analysis (engineering) , control (management) , public relations , political science , computer science , law , economics , finance , artificial intelligence , curriculum , microeconomics , operating system
In its report published in 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the ‘9/11 Commission’) analyses the functioning of the Intelligence Community (ICo). It indicates that the ICo is both over‐fragmented and guilty of not sharing enough information. The Commission recommends that central control of the ICo needs to be strengthened and that more incentives for information‐sharing should be designed. This article takes a critical look at these two recommendations. Sharing information carries major risks and is therefore not something that can take place as a matter of course. Moreover, information has to be subject to a selection process before it can be shared. This selection cannot be measured objectively, so mistakes in the selection are unavoidable. Strengthening central control also poses risks: it engenders more battles over territory, it does not improve understanding of the capillaries of the organization – the capillaries being where the primary processes of information gathering, validation and assessment take place – and it involves the destruction of checks and balances. Fragmentation may even be functional since it leads to redundancy, itself a safeguard against the risk of misselecting relevant information.