The mission of government often needs/demands enhanced data sharing. This is true of the intelligence world as most know from the 9/11 commissions report, but its criticality for other work such as disaster response, law enforcement, health care, and other missions is also clear. Additionally, government efficiency needs demand the reuse and sharing of data, especially across organizations. Of course this results in implications ranging from security to privacy concerns to data integrity to governance issues of investment, change control, and other critical areas. The panel will address topics such as: case studies in the use of web services to share data and the lessons learned/issues raised in security; from perspectives of data providers and consumers, policy concerns such as investment and sustainability of shared web services and cross agency-policy management.

9-11...three numbers that bring flashbacks to every American. Post 9-11 demanded that we stand up as a nation and guard against terrorists and calloused criminals alike. The key to dealing with this dilemma remains INFORMATION. We must find ways to share information and share it quickly and efficiently while respecting our privacy and civil laws that we all hold dear. The information flow cannot be interrupted while Washington scrutinizes it and passes it from Agency to Agency and Department to Department for sometimes conflicting individual policy and governance reviews. The panelists will discuss the issues in the light of what has worked and how they overcame the challenges - and look at the hurdles that still stand in the way. Our panel will probe governance and privacy as well as technology - both yesterday's and tomorrow's - as we look into how to change the paradigm of the "Need to Know" to the "Need to Share."

This panel will consider the challenges and insights regarding cross-enterprise information management (IM) in the context of a combined operations center. We will outline a scenario, wherein the panelists are gathered to resolve the IM challenges in establishing a joint operations center to monitor the U.S. Government awareness of an emergency such as an avian flu outbreak.
There are several principles for data sharing and information management in this context. In order to effectively realize a shared awareness of the situation data must: exist, be accessible, be in a commonly organized format, and be relevant. Example challenges include negotiating disparate networks and security policies, or the lack of a shared ontology to govern the management of metadata. Example questions include whether advanced search technologies and techniques obviate the need to manage metadata.
The panelists will each discuss a topic in this context, either detailing a challenge or a candidate solution to the commonly-understood challenges in maintaining a shared awareness of event and response information among several agencies and the private sector.