Review this fact sheet on fusion centers: National Network of Fusion Centers Fact Sheet.
Use information from this fact sheet as well as examples from other sources to support your post.
Discuss the importance of fusion centers. What do you see as the primary priorities of fusion centers? How do fusion centers help the organizations they are involved with? Provide a specific example of when a fusion center can help an organization.
In responding to your peers, identify areas of improvement for fusion centers. How can technology be used to improve fusion centers? Cite specific examples.
Refer to the Discussion Rubric for directions on completing these discussions.
Website: National Network of Fusion Centers Fact Sheet
This website defines fusion centers, provides a brief overview of fusion center tactics, and explores exactly what fusion centers do with the information they gather.
This resource supports this weeks discussion.
PDF: The Role of Fusion Centers in Countering Violent Extremism
This article provides an overview of fusion centers.
This resource supports this weeks discussion.
Peer post one
Good afternoon class,
Based off of the reading, fusion centers are a vital link between the boots on the ground and those who act upon what is found. Since their founding during the Bush administration, they have provided a higher level of communication between all levels of law enforcement (Department, 2014). The primary priority of fusion centers is to work towards preventing another 9/11, in a nut shell. One of the largest reasons why 9/11 happened was because agencies and law enforcement were not talking with each other. What I mean by that is they were not sharing intelligence with each other. What that did was create a barrier between agencies and allowed intelligence to slip through the cracks. While there are many thoughts and ideas behind 9/11, I believe if agencies would have communicated with each other, as they do today, then there would be a high chance that it could not have happened. During the Bush era, technology was booming, which also plays a huge role in the way intelligence is shared as well. It is a cluster of things that made fusion center necessary to move forward within the intelligence and law enforcement community.
There are four fundamentals that fusion centers work off of: receive, analyze, disseminate, and gather. That along with protecting the civil liberties and civil rights of Americans (National, 2018). As mentioned, their goal is to keep everyone informed. The goal is to prevent terrorist attacks from occurring again. As it pertains to fusion centers, it is a team effort. While most are ran by federal law enforcement agents, there are some that are ran by state and local agencies. With that, every partnering agency needs to be willing to give their all in order for these fusion centers to be a success. Within these fusion centers, there are multiple networks and databases that are used in order to disseminate information. From our textbook, we learned about the Homeland Security Information Network, Joint Regional Informational Exchange System, Law Enforcement Online, and many others (Carter, 2004). All of these systems, networks, and databases are crucial to the overall success of fusion centers and the communities in which they look after.
There has been some discussion as to whether or not fusion centers are even beneficial. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has released several reports as to the pros and cons of fusion centers. One of their biggest cons is that they believe overtime, they have not contributed to the counter terrorism campaign as much as the higher leaders would have liked (Barnosky, 2016). This would prove to be a big issue considering this was their main goal when stood up. Their efforts have not been for nothing though. In 2009, fusion centers assisted in provided vital information pertaining to the Raleigh Jihad case. Also in 2011, fusion centers based in Seattle, Washington assisted in the disruption of a suspected attack against a military recruiting center (Barnosky, 2016). While fusion centers address issues such as natural disasters and drug investigations; they still do contribute to the counter terrorism campaign. It is a slow process that ensures the most accurate information is gathered legally and disseminated in a timely manner.
Reference:
Barnosky, J. (2016, July 29). Fusion Centers: Whats working and what isnt. Retrieved March 11, 2019, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2015/03/17/fusion-centers-whats-working-and-what-isnt/
Carter, D. L., (2004). Law Enforcement Intelligence: A Guide for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies.
Department of Homeland Security. (2014). State and major urban area fusion centers.
National Network of Fusion Centers Fact Sheet. (2018, December 17). Retrieved March 11, 2019, from https://www.dhs.gov/national-network-fusion-centers-fact-sheet
Peer post 2
Hello all,
Discuss the importance of fusion centers.
Per our reading and other sources, fusion centers provide valuable information to agencies in the realm of crime and terrorist activity prevention, detection, and investigation (Department of Homeland Security, 2018).The fusion centers give law enforcement the ability to talk to other agencies and share information that may be vital to solving or stopping a criminal event or an act of terrorism by analyzing and sharing the information across boundaries and agencies (Carter, 2004). The purpose of fusion centers was to originally help with the fight against terrorism after the attacks of September 11, 2001 (Pherson & Sullivan, 2013). However, when it was realized that individual states did not have the same level of threat from terrorists as the national government they quickly adapted and began to focus attention on an all crimes and all hazards model (Pherson & Sullivan, 2013). This helped to ensure they were relevant to the needs of local law enforcement cases as well as national terrorism incidents (Pherson & Sullivan, 2013).
What do you see as the primary priorities of fusion centers?
Fusion centers were brought about to fulfill the need for an agency to be able to have an entity that could collect both unclassified and classified data from federal agencies, analyze the data as it relates to the area of the fusion center, disseminate the threat data to other agencies within their jurisdiction, and gather information as it relates to the local environment, scrutinize it and disseminate it to those local and federal agencies in need of the information (Department of Homeland Security, 2018). They must do this and still work to protect the rights and freedoms of all citizens by gathering the information lawfully (Department of Homeland Security, 2018).
How do fusion centers help the organizations they are involved with?
By providing information that has been gathered locally, analyzing it, and the disseminating it to the agencies that requested it, they help federal agencies they are partnered with by providing the local expertise that a federal agency may not have for an area where there are no federal agencies specifically located (Department of Homeland Security, 2018).
Provide a specific example of when a fusion center can help an organization.
In June 2011 the Colorado Information Analysis Center (CIAC) was instrumental in helping the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in catching a suspected bombing suspect (Department of Homeland Security, 2011). This all took place because the CIAC immediately responded to information sent to them by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) agents (Department of Homeland Security, 2011). The CIAC sent out the information to all fusion centers within the nation and the Terrorism Liaison Officers (TLOs) in Colorado in an effort to gain information on any possibly related incidents (Department of Homeland Security, 2011). A state trooper reported that the suspect he had stopped 24 hours prior was the suspect in the attempted bombing incident and the CIAC received more information from a different TLO on the same suspect because he was suspected in the partial detonation of another bomb near a hotel in the vicinity of the book store attempt (Department of Homeland Security, 2011). Because of the CIACs actions the suspect was held in custody to face charges of attempting to detonate a bomb (Department of Homeland Security, 2011). There are many more fusion centers success stories on the Department of Homeland Security website.
Respectfully, Christopher
References
Carter, D. L., (2004). Law Enforcement Intelligence: A Guide for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies.
Department of Homeland Security. (2018). National network of fusion centers fact sheet. Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/national-network-fusion-center
Department of Homeland Security. (2011). Fusion center is instrumental in the arrest of an attempted bombing suspect. Colorado Information Analysis Center, June 2011. Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/2011-fusion-center-success-sto
Pherson, K., H., & Sullivan R., A., Jr. (2013). Improving the quality of analysis in fusion centers: Making the most of the nations investment. Journal of Strategic Security, 6(3), 309. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=https://search.e
