Fusion Centers Face “Insufficient” Terrorist Activity
Fusion centers are collaborative law enforcement and intelligence organizations that were established all over the country after 9/11 to share intelligence and counterterrorism information. But in the absence of a widespread domestic terrorist threat, they have not consistently demonstrated their value, according to a recent study.
“Fusion centers emerged almost spontaneously in response to a need by state and local law enforcement for useful and usable intelligence related to the evolving terrorist threat,” observed Milton Nenneman, a Sacramento police officer, in a master’s thesis (pdf) based on a survey of California fusion centers.
But the terrorist threat has turned out to be “insufficient” to justify or sustain the new fusion centers.
“There is, more often than not, insufficient purely ‘terrorist’ activity to support a multi-jurisdictional and multi-governmental level fusion center that exclusively processes terrorist activity,” Lt. Nenneman wrote.
As a result, “Fusion centers must consider analyzing or processing other criminal activity, in addition to terrorist activity, in order to maintain the skills and interest of the analysts, as well as the participation and data collection of the emergency responder community.”
Basic questions regarding who the fusion centers are supposed to serve and exactly what they are supposed to produce often lack satisfactory answers, Lt. Nenneman reported.
While there is little consensus about the precise mission or function of fusion centers, which vary widely, “the majority of fusion centers operate exclusively in an analytical capacity rather than as having any response or operational capacity.”
“It would seem prudent to make a concerted effort to seek out the emergency responder administrators and elected officials to given them regular threat assessments and situational awareness briefings to demonstrate the value and capability of the unit,” he suggested.
See “An Examination of State and Local Fusion Centers and Data Collection Methods” by Milton W. Nenneman, Naval Postgraduate School, March 2008.
Related issues were examined by the Congressional Research Service in “Fusion Centers: Issues and Options for Congress” (pdf), updated January 18, 2008.
See also “Homeland Security: Federal Efforts Are Helping to Alleviate Some Challenges Encountered by State and Local Information Fusion Centers” (pdf), Government Accountability Office Report No. GAO-08-35, October 2007.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center recently won disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act of records documenting federal efforts to curtail public disclosure of fusion center information in the state of Virginia.
To empower new voices to start their career in nuclear weapons studies, the Federation of American Scientists launched the New Voices on Nuclear Weapons Fellowship. Here’s what our inaugural cohort accomplished.
Common frameworks for evaluating proposals leave this utility function implicit, often evaluating aspects of risk, uncertainty, and potential value independently and qualitatively.
The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]
According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ August 2023 pulse panel, 60% of public schools were utilizing a “community school” or “wraparound services model” at the start of this school year—up from 45% last year.