Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO identified: (1) automated information systems used by federal agencies in combatting illicit drugs; and (2) federal drug control community efforts to improve counterdrug information management.
GAO found that: (1) 24 civilian and intelligence agencies and 9 Department of Defense (DOD) components operated over 100 drug control information systems; (2) due to the importance of effective management and sharing of information on drug trafficking activities and enforcement efforts, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) sponsored two interagency working groups to maximize the exchange and use of drug-related information; (3) individual agencies with varying degrees of independence needed effective central information resources management (IRM) leadership to ensure cooperative agency action and to successfully implement a governmentwide information management strategy; (4) interoperability problems among agencies' automated information systems and the use of unautomated data limited how well agencies shared important drug investigative information; (5) data integrity problems that plagued agencies could cause misdirected interdiction operations and incriminate innocent persons; (6) agencies needed to better protect sensitive data; and (7) the proliferation of intelligence centers among agencies significantly complicated information management.
