Multimodal Information Sharing Team (MIST) – Port of Baltimore Industry and Public Sector Cooperation for Information Sharing

Abstract

The Multimodal Information Sharing Team (MIST) is an evolution of the Maritime Information Sharing Taskforce that has been conducting workshops in domestic ports since 2008. The MIST provides a framework and process for the collaborative exploration of information sharing across the port multimodal community. The MIST emphasizes the private sector perspective to ensure that government stakeholders are leveraging this critical player in the sharing of all hazards threat information. The Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE) sponsored the Baltimore MIST. This report presents the results of an action planning workshop that involved over 30 local, state, and national public and private sector stakeholders in maritime security for the Port of Baltimore. It highlights the motivations for information sharing and the information needs of both public and private sector. It uses the Inter-Organizational Collaborative Capacity model to organize the analysis and recommendations for three aspects of information sharing: security-focused mechanisms, commerce-focused mechanisms, and technology mechanisms. The report concludes with a set of both immediate-term and long term actions that were identified by workshop participants. Through the MIST collaboration, the PM-ISE in partnership with National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office (NMIO) will continue to work with the Baltimore area, supporting the on-going development of the Maritime Law Enforcement Information Network (MLEIN).