DHS was created in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Not since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 has the federal government undertaken an organizational merger of this magnitude. Enacted on November 25, 2002, the Homeland Security Act established DHS by merging 22 distinct agencies and organizations with multiple missions, values, and cultures. The 22 agencies whose powers were absorbed or in part assumed by DHS came from eight different departments (Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Justice, Transportation, and the Treasury) and two independent offices (the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the General Services Administration). In addition, DHS merged responsibilities from former agencies to create some new agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection. On March 1, 2003, DHS officially began operations as a new department. DHS is among the largest federal government agencies, with approximately 180,000 employees and an estimated budget of $43.6 billion for fiscal year 2007. DHS’s mission is to lead the unified national effort to secure America, prevent and deter terrorist attacks, protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the nation, ensure safe and secure borders, welcome lawful immigrants and visitors, and promote the free flow of commerce. Six of the seven primary operational agencies, and the Operations Directorate of the department, have identified the need to conduct activities in support of the homeland security mission 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The department’s July 2006 organizational chart, as illustrated in figure 1, highlights these six agencies and the Operations Directorate. The three components of DHS that have overall responsibility for the four multi-agency 24/7/365 operations centers were created in response to the events of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent establishment of DHS. By merging portions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with elements of U.S. Customs, CBP was created as part of DHS in 2003 to protect the nation’s borders in order to prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering or exiting the United States while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel. CBP sponsors two 24/7/365 multi-agency operations centers: the Air and Marine Operations Center and the National Targeting Center. TSA, established in 2001 (as part of the Department of Transportation), and incorporated into DHS in 2003, protects the nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce and sponsors the Transportation Security Operations Center. DHS established the Office of Operations Coordination (referred to as the Operations Directorate) after a broad internal review in 2005. The Operations Directorate, which sponsors the National Operations Center (includes the previous Homeland Security Operations Center), is responsible for coordinating internal and external operational issues throughout the department, conducting incident management, and facilitating rapid staff planning and execution. The three sponsoring components provide overall direction and management for their respective centers. We have previously reported that establishing the new DHS is an enormous undertaking and the new department needs to build a successful transformation that does the following: instills the organization with important management principles; rapidly implements a phased-in transition plan; leverages the new department and other agencies in executing the national homeland security strategy; and builds collaborative partnerships with federal, state, local, and private-sector organizations. DHS faces significant management and organizational transformation challenges as it works to protect the nation from terrorism and simultaneously establish itself. For these reasons, in January 2005, we continued to designate the implementation and transformation of the department as high risk. DHS’s Inspector General reported, in December 2004, that integrating DHS’s many separate components into a single, effective, efficient, and economical department remains one of its biggest challenges. We also reported in 2005 that agencies can enhance and sustain their collaborative efforts by engaging in eight key management practices: defining and articulating a common outcome; establishing mutually reinforcing or joint strategies; identifying and addressing needs by leveraging resources; agreeing on roles and responsibilities; establishing compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate across agency boundaries; developing mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results of collaborative efforts; reinforcing agency accountability for collaborative efforts through agency plans and reports; and reinforcing individual accountability for collaborative efforts through performance management systems. Although there is no commonly accepted definition for collaboration, in our previous assessment of collaborative efforts among federal agencies we defined it as any joint activity by two or more organizations that is intended to produce more public value than could be produced when the organizations act alone. This report focuses on the actions DHS and its components have taken to make collaboration at multi-agency operations centers as effective as possible. Joint activities take place at operations centers where multiple components staff watchstander positions and provide liaison, expertise, and access to information that would not otherwise be on hand. For this report, we selected the first seven of the eight key practices listed above and assessed the first two key practices together, thereby reducing our focus to six areas. We did not address the eighth practice—reinforcing individual accountability for collaborative efforts through performance management systems—because an in-depth examination of component agencies’ performance management systems was beyond the scope of this review. The four multi-agency operations centers each have their own mission and generate different products while performing similar functions and sharing a number of customers. The missions of the AMOC, NTC, and TSOC are tactical, including such activities as monitoring the nation’s airspace, the movement of potential terrorists, and the passengers on commercial flights, respectively. NOC-Watch’s mission is more strategic in that it collects information gathered by the other multi-agency operations centers and provides a national perspective on situational awareness. The products of the four multi-agency operations centers reflect their different missions and range from reports on suspect individuals traveling on commercial flights to reports on suspicious private air and marine craft. The multi-agency operations centers all share some common functions: maintaining situational awareness and information sharing and communications; coordinating internal operations and coordinating among federal, state, local, tribal, and private-sector entities; and managing incidents and making decisions. While all the multi-agency operations centers share common customers, such as foreign, federal, state, and local governments, the NOC-Watch has a larger number of customers, given its role as a hub for overall situational awareness. Of the four multi-agency operations centers, three—AMOC, NTC and TSOC—have tactical yet different missions and provide different products that reflect their respective missions. The NOC-Watch has a more strategic mission in providing an overall assessment of situational awareness. The AMOC’s primary mission is to detect, sort, track, and facilitate the interdiction of criminal entities throughout the Western Hemisphere, by utilizing integrated air and marine forces, the latest technology, and tactical intelligence. AMOC’s maintains day-to-day, around-the-clock airspace situational awareness of the nation’s borders through identification and detection of foreign and domestic threats. Created in 1988 by the U.S. Customs Service and located in Southern California, the AMOC was established as the Air and Marine Operations Center on March 1, 2003. In addition to CBP and U.S. Coast Guard personnel, the AMOC is staffed by the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Department of Defense National Guard Bureau-Air National Guard, as well as a representative of the government of Mexico. AMOC staff use surveillance systems and databases to detect, identify, and track potential threats, and to coordinate the apprehension of criminals using law enforcement air, marine, and ground interdiction forces. Staff utilize a surveillance system that includes an extensive network of over 200 ground-based radar and satellite tracking systems throughout North America and the Caribbean. Staff also use numerous law enforcement and Federal Aviation Administration databases to ensure that U.S. entry policy and procedures are followed. Figure 2 shows the variety of information and data sources employed by the AMOC. Staff can conduct detailed research from a transnational and criminal threat perspective to identify suspect persons, aircraft, and marine vessels. AMOC staff use the resulting information to coordinate air and marine law enforcement activity with various agencies such as the U.S. Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement; federal, state, and local law enforcement; the Department of Defense; U.S. and foreign air traffic control facilities; and foreign government coordination centers. The AMOC Daily Intelligence Report focuses on the nation’s borders involving suspicious private air and marine craft that are detected by radar, eyewitnesses, or surveillance aircraft. The NTC’s mission is to coordinate and support all agency field-level anti- terrorism activities by providing tactical targeting and analytical research, and to be a single point of reference for all agency anti-terrorism efforts. NTC monitors the movement of potential terrorists and prevents them and any weapons of terror from entering and exiting our country through land, air, and sea ports. Established on October 22, 2001, under the U.S. Customs Service, the NTC, located in Northern Virginia, began 24/7/365 operations November 10, 2001. In addition to CBP personnel, the NTC is staffed by the U.S. Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Air Marshal Service, and the Transportation Security Administration. NTC staff use sophisticated information-gathering techniques and analytical tools to look at data containing passenger and flight information. These data include lists of known terrorists, foreign visitors whose official authorization permitting entry into and travel within the United States has elapsed (visa overstays), passport information, and cargo listings to seek potential matches. Any inconsistency identified in the data can trigger additional analysis. Figure 3 shows the variety of sources of information and data sources employed by the NTC. NTC works with a variety of federal stakeholders. For example, the NTC works with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Terrorist Screening Center to identify persons on the National Terrorist Watch List.