Primary Fusion Centers Essay

The event I choose for the current events assignment is the recent DEA, FBI conduct raid on a Grant County meth ring. The event took place Thursday morning on April 30, 2015 in the grant county area. The event occurred after a 13 month investigation began in March of 2014 of an alleged meth ring in areas of Grant County including Silver City and Santa Clara. The investigation led law enforcement agencies to arrest 12 individuals on methamphetamine trafficking charges. Law enforcement agencies that participated in the investigation and events included Homeland Security officers, DEA agents and the FBI. It was stated in the press release that no local law enforcement had any part in the investigation or event that took place Thursday morning. All 12 defendants were arrested during the early morning of April 30. The arrested individuals included both male and females between the ages of 24 and 53 years of age. The law enforcement agencies involved set up a command post in Santa Clara early Thursday morning to issue arrest warrants in the grant county area, according to Santa Clara Police Chief Lonnie Sandoval.

Moreover, the issue of terrorism was believed to be dealt within the realm of the federal jurisdiction rather than the state or local jurisdiction(Davis, 2010). This couldn’t be further from the truth because the state and local police departments have a stronger relationship with

Fusion centers will contribute to state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies in many different ways. The main contribution is the coordination of all agencies exchanging real time information, packaged up and sent out to the individuals on the street. That information can now be accessed by anyone working a particular case. In turn this information can help to resolve a potential crime before it happens or help to apprehend a potential suspect.

The Act has even been crucial in taking down several terrorist plots before damage was inflicted. For instance, a Lodi, California father and son were arrested and indicted after lying to federal agents in regards to the son’s attendance at an Al Qaeda terrorist training. It secured six guilty pleas from an al Qaeda “sleeper cell” in Lackawanna, NY , six convictions from a terror cell in Portland, OR, and a prosecution for Colombia's leftist rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia money launderer. In addition, it convicted a man who sent over 200 threatening, white powder laced letters to various Louisiana government agencies, businesses, and individuals and the discovery of an 88 year old Wisconsin woman who was kidnapped and held for ransom. (Carrigan, Alex,

All four participants (tribal, local, state, and federal) of the fusion centers have much to by collaborating with each other. Some of those advantages are improved intelligence analysis and production capabilities, expanded information/intelligence sharing and dissemination, as well as enhanced prevention, protection,

-To those of you who are still unaware, every day we are under the threat of both external and internal threats to our society. For example many still remember the tragedy of 9/11; many innocent lives were lost that day and many attribute the blame to poor information sharing between agencies. Fusion centers were the answer to prevent

Fusion Centers contribute to the coordination of state, local, regional and federal law enforcement agencies and different ways. It serves as a main center where all pertinent threat related information in fighting terrorism and solving crimes is gathered by local, state and federal law enforcement. The information

federal level. I believe that this is why when a crime of a serious nature has taken

According to Jones (2011), the strength of fusion centers is called "Epistemic Federalism" (p. 178). Epistemic Federalism allows local agencies to utilize an approach that is taken from their perspective. The fusion center encompasses federal; state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT); and private sector partners, but the state and local government plays more of a substantial role with the gathering of information. Local agencies deal with the public on a daily bases and their mission is to protect and serve the public. This connection allows local agencies to gain more information from the public, especially when they suspect something suspicious. As stated by Jones (2011), the local agencies are more adept at identify terrorist cells, than

The fusion centers have many roles in fighting emanate threats outside our borders and within our borders. These fusion centers have a critical role in sharing threat-related information between the federal and state government, local, tribal, territorial(SLTT), and private-sector partners. The fusion centers receive, analyze, disseminate, and gather the information for the government.

There are different issues that I would like to explore in this paper. One of the issues I would like to explore is whether or not fusion centers are a threat to our civil liberties. Another issue that I want to explore are what is their strengths and weaknesses? At the end of my report, I will also provide some issues that need to be resolved and provide some thoughts of my own.

In order to utilize State and Local Law Enforcement in law enforcement operations (LEO) we need to look no further than the intelligence fusion center (IFC). It is here that information can be centralized, analyzed, fused and pushed out to the intelligence community (IC) for use in any situation, as long as it is relevant to the investigation. As a basis for this, in 2003, the Department of Justice drafted the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (NCISP) in order to guide law enforcement agencies to adopt intelligence-led policing as their primary means of operation. (Dept. of Justice, 2003)

Everyone likes to have a choice of where they like to shop. However, the distance a consumer has to travel may be a problem. In addition to this, the cost of gasoline and the amount of time they are allotted also may be another issue. In order to find the solution to this problem, I propose another supercenter like Target come to Plainview. Target coming to Plainview would solve this problem and could also benefit the idea of shopping locally. It is would be good for shoppers to have another choice to shop other than the local Walmart already in Plainview. On the other hand, supercenters like Target do not usually come to small towns.

Additionally, why is there some obstruction to this course of action? Department of Homeland Security originated the fusion center which is an information sharing center determined to contribute intelligence among agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Justice, the US military and local, state and other federal law enforcement. These agencies bring together intelligence to investigate and analyze it. According to the fusion center and guidelines, “a fusion center is a successful and proficient instrument to exchange intelligence and information that maximizes resources, streamlines operations, and improves the ability to fight crime and terrorism by evaluating data from a diversity of sources.” The importance to share information among all US intelligence agencies, law enforcement and military contributes to the prevention of the most serious crimes and cyber-crimes. Quick and accurate information is one of the advantages of information sharing. Information sharing outweighs vulnerability when being accessible to all law enforcement personnel and other intelligence agencies. Information sharing makes criminal cases run smoother in an approach that all agencies receive the required feedback from a certain case. It can be trusted and reliable after being collected and

In the State of New York, fusion center is a perfect example of information technology optimizing their performance in reducing crime within their police departments. The New York/New Jersey High Intensity Drug Trafficking Center serves as an information hub for law enforcement. According to (Johnson, 2008), the mass of intelligence data in the central location has proved to be a key factor in identifying individuals and organizations that are facilitating or carrying out terrorist activity in New York City.