Because terrorists do not operate on a 9-5 schedule, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its operational components have established information gathering and analysis centers that conduct activities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Staff at these operations centers work to help detect, deter, and prevent terrorist acts. DHS has determined that out of 25 operations centers, four require higher levels of collaboration that can only be provided by personnel from multiple DHS agencies, and other federal, and sometimes state and local, agencies. For these four multi-agency operations centers, this report (1) describes their missions, products, functions, and customers and (2) assesses the extent to which DHS efforts to promote collaboration among the multiple agencies responsible for the centers reflect key practices for enhancing and sustaining collaborative efforts. To do so, GAO visited operations centers, reviewed data and reports from the centers, and interviewed center and other DHS officials. Each of the four multi-agency 24/7/365 operations centers has a different mission and therefore produces different products, yet all contribute to the larger mission of DHS and have similar functions and customers. Customs and Border Protection runs two of the four multi-agency operations centers-the National Targeting Center and the Air and Marine Operations Center. The former monitors the international movement of potential terrorists and produces reports on suspect individuals; the latter maintains situational awareness of the nation's airspace, general aviation, and sea-lanes and produces reports on suspicious private air and marine craft. The Transportation Security Administration's operations center monitors passengers on commercial flights; works to mitigate the vulnerabilities of commercial airports, rail stations, and pipelines, the National Capital Region, and critical infrastructure across the nation; and produces reports on these topics. DHS's Operations Directorate runs the National Operations Center Interagency Watch and works to enhance efficiency and collaboration among DHS components. This operations center has a more strategic mission in that it uses information gathered by the other operations centers to provide overall national situational awareness, and it prepares security briefs for federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Opportunities exist to enhance collaboration among 24/7/365 multi-agency operations centers. While DHS has leveraged resources by having staff from multiple agencies work together, the centers lack joint strategies for collaboration and staffing needs assessments, and they have not established a definition of watchstander roles for all agencies at each center. The centers also lack standards and procedures for using DHS's primary information sharing network; mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results; and reinforced accountability through agency plans and reports. GAO's previous work has shown that such practices are effective in enhancing and sustaining collaboration among federal agencies. The establishment of DHS's Operations Directorate in 2005 provides a means to promote implementation of more collaborative practices at the centers. Staff Working to Maintain Situational Awareness at Operations Centers Sources: From left to right: TSA and CBP.

Whether U.S. terrorism-prevention efforts match the threat continues to be central in policy debate. Part of this debate is whether the United States needs a dedicated domestic counterterrorism intelligence agency. This book examines such an agency's possible capability, comparing its potential effectiveness with that of current efforts, and its acceptability to the public, as well as various balances and trade-offs involved.

The Political Economy of Bureaucracy applies Public Choice theory and a complex systems view of government institutions to analyze policy implementation as an economic process. It addresses the common and vexing question of why managing federal agencies for results is so difficult by challenging traditional assumptions of institutional design and policy analysis. Using creative methods that focus on relationships that constrain the choices of executives and managers in a political hierarchy, the author reveals control and coordination as goals that are imperfectly achieved and often conflicting with one another. Despite decades of intense study, serious reform efforts and impressive technological advances, the U.S. government remains a typical bureaucracy that fails to meet citizens’ expectations. Clearly, policy analysis is missing something. The problem may rest with "machine" models of government. Rules, especially those governing expenditures, are assumed to be feasible and effective. Analysis of the federal government as a complex system of relationships between semi-autonomous agents helps explain the disconnect between policy and results. The solution is to roll back micro-management of ends and means; policymakers should focus on objectives and facilitate implementation by selectively relaxing constraints that prevent experimentation needed to determine the most effective methods. This book devotes unusual attention to the interaction between executive and legislative branches of government and between political appointees and career civil servants. Most studies of government policy take existing institutional structure for granted. Different conclusions emerge from this analysis by virtue of the systems view that accepts status quo hierarchies but questions the effectiveness of the rules that govern policy implementation. This book will be of interest to postgraduates and researchers focussing on Economic Theory, Public Choice, Institutional Economics and Political Science, as well as to those working in the public sector interested in Public Administration, Public Policy, and Organizational Behavior.

Over 3,100 total pages ... CONTENTS: The Nexus of Extremism and Trafficking: Scourge of the World or So Much Hype? Crossing Our Red Lines About Partner Engagement in Mexico Two Faces of Attrition: Analysis of a Mismatched Strategy against Mexican and Central American Drug Traffickers Combating Drug Trafficking: Variation in the United States' Military Cooperation with Colombia and Mexico Ungoverned Spaces in Mexico: Autodefensas, Failed States, and the War on Drugs in Michoacan U.S. SOUTHWEST BORDER SECURITY: AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TWO WARS: OVERSEAS CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS AND THE WAR ON DRUGS WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THE WAR ON DRUGS? AN ASSESSMENT OF MEXICO’S COUNTERNARCOTICS STRATEGY THE DIVERSIFICATION OF MEXICAN TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS AND ITS EFFECTS ON SPILLOVER VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations: Matching Strategy to Threat THE IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CITIZEN SECURITY BEHAVIOR IN MEXICO Combating Transnational Organized Crime: Strategies and Metrics for the Threat Beyond Merida: A Cooperative Counternarcotics Strategy for the 21st Century MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS AND TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS, A NEW ALLIANCE? THE EFFECTIVE BUSINESS PRACTICES OF MEXICAN DRUG TRAFFICKING ORGANIZATIONS (DTOs) DRUG TRAFFICKING AND POLICE CORRUPTION: A COMPARISON OF COLOMBIA AND MEXICO CRISIS IN MEXICO: ASSESSING THE MÉRIDA INITIATIVE AND ITS IMPACT ON US-MEXICAN SECURITY BORDER SECURITY: IS IT ACHIEVABLE ON THE RIO GRANDE? Borders and Borderlands in the Americas PREVENTING BULK CASH AND WEAPONS SMUGGLING INTO MEXICO: ESTABLISHING AN OUTBOUND POLICY ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER FOR CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTON DRUG TRAFFICKING WITHIN MEXICO: A LAW ENFORCEMENT ISSUE OR INSURGENCY? USSOCOM’s Role in Addressing Human Trafficking Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence National Security Threats at the U.S.-Mexico Border Merida Initiative: Proposed U.S. Anticrime and Counterdrug Assistance for Mexico and Central America COCAINE TRAFFICKING THROUGH WEST AFRICA: THE HYBRIDIZED ILLICIT NETWORK AS AN EMERGING TRANSNATIONAL THREAT ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORIST ACTIVITY IN MEXICO, 1999-2002 Is the Narco-violence in Mexico an Insurgency? THE USE OF TERRORISM BY DRUG TRAFFICKING ORGANIZATIONS’ PARAMILITARY GROUPS IN MEXICO An Approach to the 40-Year Drug War EXPLOITING WEAKNESSES: AN APPROACH TO COUNTER CARTEL STRATEGY MEXICO AND THE COCAINE EPIDEMIC: THE NEW COLOMBIA OR A NEW PROBLEM? EXPLAINING VARIATION IN THE APPREHENSION OF MEXICAN DRUG TRAFFICKING CARTEL LEADERS Drug Cartels and Gangs in Mexico and Central America: A View through the Lens of Counterinsurgency The COIN Approach to Mexican Drug Cartels: Square Peg in a Round Hole Counterinsurgency and the Mexican Drug War THE UNTOLD STORY OF MEXICO’S RISE AND EVENTUAL MONOPOLY OF THE METHAMPHETAMINE TRADE Competing with the Cartels: How Mexico's Government Can Reduce Organized Crime's Economic Grip on its People FIGHTING CORRUPTION IN MEXICO: LESSONS FROM COLOMBIA Defeating Mexico's Drug Trafficking Organizations: The Range of Military Operations in Mexico Drug Trafficking as a Lethal Regional Threat in Central America What Explains the Patterns of Diversification in Drug Trafficking Organizations Evaluating the Impact of Drug Trafficking Organizations on the Stability of the Mexican State

There has been a recent increase in the level of drug trafficking-related violence within and between the drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. This violence has generated concern among U.S. policy makers that the violence in Mexico might spill over into the U.S. Currently, U.S. federal officials deny that the recent increase in drug trafficking-related violence in Mexico has resulted in a spillover into the U.S., but they acknowledge that the prospect is a serious concern. Contents of this report: (1) Intro.; (2) The Southwest Border Region and the Illicit Drug Trade Between the U.S. and Mexico; (3) Relationship Between Illicit Drug Markets and Violence; (4) What is Spillover Violence?: (5) Challenges in Evaluating and Responding to Spillover Violence.