Jeffrey W. Seifert

The Promise of All Things E? Expectations and Challenges of Emergent Electronic Government

The ambiguous nature of electronic government (e-government) has resulted in hype and confusion, with little systematic consideration of the expectations and limitations of taking government online. This paper seeks to examine the role of e-government in the United States as an evolving process that manifests itself in three distinct sectors: government-to-government, government-to-business, and government-to-citizen. Using this typology as an organizing principle, we show how information technology has the potential to enhance government accessibility and citizen participation. We also show how the move toward a market-focused conceptualization of government information and service delivery raises the potential for blurring citizen and consumer roles, possibly at the cost of a robust, informed, and engaged citizenry.

Data mining and the search for security: Challenges for connecting the dots and databases ☆

Abstract Data mining is emerging as one of the key features of many homeland security initiatives. Often used as a means for detecting fraud, assessing risk, and product retailing, data mining involves the use of data analysis tools to discover previously unknown, valid patterns and relationships in large data sets. In the context of homeland security, data mining is often viewed as a potential means to identify terrorist activities, such as money transfers and communications, and to identify and track individual terrorists themselves, such as through travel and immigration records. However, compared to earlier uses of data mining by government, some of the homeland security data mining applications represent a significant expansion in the quantity and scope of data to be analyzed. Three of the higher profile initiatives include the now defunct Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) project, the recently canceled Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II (CAPPS II), and the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX) pilot project. This article examines the evolving nature of data mining for homeland security purposes, the limitations of data mining, and some of the issues raised by its expanding use, including data quality, interoperability, mission creep, and privacy.

The effects of September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on public and private information infrastructures: a preliminary assessment of lessons learned

Abstract This article provides a preliminary assessment of the impact of the September 11, 2001, attacks on public and private information infrastructures. As the events of the day demonstrated, information technology promises to play a critical role in future homeland security initiatives. Over the past two decades, information technology has become increasingly integrated into the day-to-day operations of most organizations. The dependability and continuity of information infrastructures can be a determining factor of how well an organization will be able to respond to a catastrophic event. The article considers some of the lessons learned from September 11 as both government and business move forward to rebuild and reinforce their technology assets. Although many lessons can be identified, they emphasize three general principles: the establishment and practice of comprehensive continuity and recovery plans, the decentralization of operations, and the development of system redundancies to eliminate single points of weakness.

Do you know where your information is in the homeland security era

Abstract Why should we care about our information? As we enter the era of homeland security, one can see a new premium being placed on the role of information to fight terrorism while the policies related to government information practices are in a state of flux. Exactly how these policies are evolving is not always clear. Yet, the decisions being made now will likely have a lasting impact for years to come. In an attempt to better understand dynamics underlying these changes, a number of questions regarding the use, control, and protection of personal and public information are posed in this introduction to the symposium issue. We also review some of the major themes examined in greater detail by the contributors to the symposium. These issues include the role of e-government in homeland security, the emphasis on information sharing, the emergence of new information classification categories, the growth of data mining, and the eroding sense of privacy. While a number of reasons can be offered to justify one policy alternative over another, we conclude that the importance of these issues suggests that they are best debated and implemented during a time not under duress when decisions made in the heat of the moment can lead to unintended consequences.

Technology and Governance—Evolution or Revolution?

Information Technologies and Global Politics: The Changing Scope of Power and Governance. Edited by James N. Rosenau, J. P. Singh Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. 312 pp.,

Using E-Government to Reinforce Government–Citizen Relationships

75.50 cloth (ISBN: 0-7914-5203-4),

Considering E-Government from the U.S. Federal Perspective

25.95 paper (ISBN: 0-7914-5204-2). Technology, Development, and Democracy: International Conflict and Cooperation in the Information Age. Edited by Juliann Emmons Allison. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. 248 pp.,

Information Sharing for Homeland Security: A Brief Overview

75.50 cloth (ISBN: 0-7914-5213-1),

Data Mining and Homeland Security

25.95 paper (ISBN: 0-7914-5214-X). Advances in technology, and especially the development of the Internet, have contributed to an increasingly fractured and competitive global political economy. One of the results of this fracturing, or what James Rosenau (1997) might call fragmegration, is an increased tendency for nonstate actors to become the creators of rules and institutions, a role formerly thought of as reserved to nation-states. This trend, in turn, raises a number of questions about the changing nature of authority in the global political economy. How, for example, will transnational technology infrastructures be regulated? Who will make the rules? How will they be enforced? How will conflicts be resolved? What is the relationship between state and nonstate actors in developing governance structures in the global political economy? The international relations (IR) literature offers many competing and contradictory answers to these questions (see, for example, Risse-Kappen 1995; Strange 1996; Zacher and Sutton 1996; Deibert 1997; Haufler 1997; Keohane and Nye 2001). Unfortunately, the qualitative changes in the global political economy—brought about in part by the development and proliferation of information technology, the heightened role of finance, and the increased mobility of people—have outpaced advances in theory. Indeed, much of modern IR theory development occurred as a result of the Cold War, a period of bipolarity that was rife with military tensions and colored by the constant (even if generally unlikely) threat of nuclear war. It should not surprise us then that many of our conceptual tools are ill-equipped to explain phenomena in a post-Cold War world characterized by economic multipolarity and military unipolarity—a world in which strength is measured in initial public offerings instead of intercontinental ballistic missiles and in which security threats come less from nation-states than from terrorists. In such a world, the proliferation of actors and the means …