Police chiefs of some of the country's largest cities are complaining that Homeland Security is not living up to its promise to share terror-related information with them. It's causing a "growing rift" and some departments are threatening to pull out of the HSA program.

In a report released this week, the homeland-security department's inspector general, Richard Skinner, said that the department's computer network designed to pool information on terrorist threats for police and other federal agencies has been ignored by many of its intended users.

The Homeland Security Information Network, or HSIN, was set up to share secret information with as many as 600 federal, state and local agencies at a cost of $337 million. The department described it as its "backbone" for dealing with national emergencies and terrorist threats. But the report found that officials across the country "are confused and frustrated, without clear guidance on [the network's] role or how to use the system to share information effectively."