Critical Releases in Homeland Security: December 26, 2012

"This report is intended to stimulate thinking about the rapid and vast geopolitical changes characterizing the world today and possible global trajectories during the next 15-20 years. As with the NIC's [National Intelligence Council] previous Global Trends reports, we do not seek to predict the future-which would be an impossible feat-but instead provide a framework for thinking about possible futures and their implications. [...] The world of 2030 will be radically transformed from our world today. By 2030, no country-whether the US, China, or any other large country-will be a hegemonic power. The empowerment of individuals and diffusion of power among states and from states to informal networks will have a drastic impact, largely reversing the historic rise of the West since 1750, restoring Asia's weight in the global economy, and ushering in a new era of 'democratization' at the international and domestic level."

"In 2011, U.S. law enforcement agencies reported 6,222 hate crime incidents involving 7,254 offenses, according to our just-released Hate Crime Statistics, 2011 report. These incidents included offenses like vandalism, intimidation, assault, rape, murder, etc. The data contained in this report, which is a subset of the information that law enforcement submits to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program, includes the following categories: offense type, location, bias motivation, victim type, number of individual victims, number of offenders, and race of offenders."

"Our national security depends on our ability to share the right information, with the right people, at the right time. This information sharing mandate requires sustained and responsible collaboration between Federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, private sector, and foreign partners. Over the last few years, we have successfully streamlined policies and processes, overcome cultural barriers, and better integrated information systems to enable information sharing. Today's dynamic operating environment, however, challenges us to continue improving information sharing and safeguarding processes and capabilities. While innovation has enhanced our ability to share, increased sharing has created the potential for vulnerabilities requiring strengthened safeguarding practices. The 2012 'National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding' provides guidance for effective development, integration, and implementation of policies, processes, standards, and technologies to promote secure and responsible information sharing. Our responses to these challenges must be strategic and grounded in three core principles. First, in treating Information as a National Asset, we recognize departments and agencies have achieved an unprecedented ability to gather, store, and use information consistent with their missions and applicable legal authorities; correspondingly they have an obligation to make that information available to support national security missions. Second, our approach recognizes Information Sharing and Safeguarding Requires Shared Risk Management. In order to build and sustain the trust required to share with one another, we must work together to identify and collectively reduce risk, rather than avoiding information loss by not sharing at all. Third, the core premise 'Information Informs Decisionmaking' underlies all our actions and reminds us better decisionmaking is the purpose of sharing information in the first place."