GAO-03-985R: Consolidated Databases Questions 

United States General Accounting Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

July 7, 2003 

The Honorable Tom Davis 

Chairman, Committee on Government Reform 

House of Representatives 

Subject: Post-hearing Question From the May 8, 2003, Hearing on Barriers to 

Information Sharing at the Department of Homeland Security

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

As requested, this letter provides our response for the record to the question posed 

by Representative Michael Turner to GAO, in your letter of June 13, 2003. 

The GAO recently released a report on the sharing of terrorist watch lists 

between federal, state, and local agencies (GAO-03-322). 1 The report 

discussed the importance of an enterprise architecture that served all 

agencies’ needs. The report went on to discuss the role of database 

architectures as an integral component of the overall enterprise architecture. 

Specifically, the report pointed out the problems encountered unless data is 

consolidated as opposed to relying on decentralized databases. The report 

recommends that the agencies move to consolidate these watch lists. 

While your report is specific to terrorist watch lists, I am interested in 

whether you believe that the Department of Homeland Security should also 

be consolidating other “stovepiped” databases in order to enable the 

correlation of relationships in that data that can point to developing threats. 

Can you comment on this? 

Standardizing and consolidating stovepiped databases can offer significant benefits. 

In particular, it can help reduce or eliminate duplicative data capture and storage and 

enable faster data access and better data consistency, which can reduce costs as well 

as improve data reliability and sharing. Analyzing these benefits in relation to 

associated costs and risks, such as security and privacy, provides a basis for informed 

decisions about not only consolidation but also the appropriate level of 

consolidation. Effective development of enterprise architectures provides for 

performing such analysis. 

 

1

U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: Terrorist Watch Lists Should Be 

Consolidated to Promote Better Integration and Sharing, GAO-03-322 (Washington, D.C.: April 15, 

2003). 
Page 2 GAO-03-985R: Consolidated Databases Questions 

In the case of federal watch lists, we identified indicators (such as the number and 

variability of the lists and the commonality of their purposes) of opportunities to 

consolidate and standardize. Consequently, we recommended that the Department of 

Homeland Security determine the extent of watch list consolidation needed to 

accomplish its mission and that such consolidation be done as part of the 

department’s efforts to develop an enterprise architecture. 

We believe this approach—analyzing information and data needs and solutions within 

the context of an enterprise architecture—is also necessary to determine the extent 

to which all existing systems of the department’s 22 component agencies should be 

standardized and consolidated. In fact, during the subject hearing, the department’s 

chief information officer testified that it plans to develop and use an enterprise 

architecture to guide its systems consolidation and integration. He stated that the 

department plans to issue the enterprise architecture by the fall of 2003. 

If you have any questions concerning this information, please contact me at (202) 

512-3439 or hiter@gao.gov, or Gary Mountjoy, Assistant Director, at (202) 512-6367 or 

mountjoyg@gao.gov. 

Sincerely yours, 

Randolph C. Hite 

Director, Information Technology Architecture 

 and Systems Issues 

(310264) 
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