Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday tasked an advisory council with four new initiatives to aid DHS, including assessments and recommendations for supply chain security, information and intelligence sharing with various partners, the department’s transparency, and relations with the private sector.
“We thought that these four issues met the moment and would have a material impact on both our accomplishing our mission as well as strengthening the department as a federal institution,” Mayorkas said in putting forth the tasking to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). The council consists of members from outside the federal government.
For supply chain security, Mayorkas asked the HSAC members how DHS could “help lead” in this area, highlighting the department’s current roles in physical security and cybersecurity. He added that DHS also has roles in “increasing efficiencies to ensure a resilient, safe and secure supply chain for critical manufacturing and technology sectors just to name two.”
DHS already has a “well-established architecture to share intelligence and information with our federal, state, local tribal and territorial partners as well as with the private sector,” he said, but asked the HSAC to explore whether it’s optimized current and future needs. He also wants recommendations on whether more investments or changes need to be made around the architecture and related processes, including the legal and policy framework, and how best the department can share information with its partners across the U.S.
Mayorkas said that the “hallmark of a good government agency is an agency that is open and transparent to and for the public it serves and achieves public accountability through those critical characteristics and qualities.” DHS has made progress in this area but can do more to “lead in being a department that is open and transparent to the public,” he said.
As for improving relations with the private sector, Mayorkas said that DHS is “fundamentally a department of partnerships” with a variety of stakeholders domestically and globally. He wants the HSAC to examine how DHS is “perceived,” and the challenges and opportunities to partnering with the department.
“But we want to assess our relationship with the private sector and build on the recommendations that are provided to us, so that partnership is only strengthened, and we are a trusted partner, an unhesitatingly trusted partner with the private sector, and develop more of a symbiotic relationship where we grow and strengthen from one another in our work together,” he said.