WASHINGTON—A top official at the Department of Homeland Security blasted his agency’s inspector general over a recent report highly critical of the ability of the government to identify and organize the country’s critical infrastructure—including wireless telecom networks—in a national asset data base.
“The IG report is erroneous,” Robert Stephan, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the DHS, told reporters yesterday after a meeting at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The DHS IG report was issued in June. Earlier this month, the DHS released its National Infrastructure Protection Plan. The priority given to U.S. critical infrastructure protection is an outgrowth of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Stephan said IG investigators incorrectly stated that raw data—as opposed to filtered data—was downloaded into the national asset database. Stephan said neither he nor his top aides were interviewed for the report and that investigators lacked knowledge and background in the critical infrastructure field.
DHS’ Office of Inspector General today defended the report.
“Our team reviewed all relevant material and interviewed personnel that were deemed appropriate for this report… Our staff are highly qualified and have the qualifications to review the department’ initiatives in this area,” stated a DHS inspector general spokeswoman in an e-mail to RCR Wireless News.
The spokeswoman declined to comment on Stephans’ claim that IG investigators rejected or ignored comments from the DHS assistant secretary’s staff.
Input, a Reston, Va., organization that specializes in government business, criticized the DHS National Infrastructure Protection Plan. The group said the plan’s funding mechanism lacks clarity and calls on the private sector to turn over sensitive critical infrastructure information to the federal government.
“In the wake of recent large-scale data loss incidents at various federal departments and agencies, this will be a difficult request to make of industry vendors,” said Input in a press statement.
Stephan said information collected from the private sector would be closely guarded. He also said he expected DHS to issue final guidelines later this year on information sharing between government and the critical infrastructure sectors. Eighty-five percent of critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, with foreign companies having significant stakes in some sectors.
