For those following Fusion centers:

[The Straight Story]

USE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY MAJORITY STAFF REPORT ON THE NATIONAL NETWORK OF FUSION CENTERS

111 pages
July 2013
4.4 MB

...

Summary of Findings

• The Committee strongly believes that the National Network is a National asset that needs to realize its full potential to help secure the Homeland. Based on the Committee’s long history of oversight of the fusion centers’ development, it appears that the National Network is on a path of continued growth, improvement, and increasing value to both the Federal Government and the fusion centers’ individual customers. In addition to significant numbers of State and local partners represented, site visits revealed over 20 different Federal offices and agencies with personnel assigned across the 32 visited fusion centers, suggesting that fusion centers provide value to a wide variety of Federal agencies.

• The strength of the National Network lies in individual fusion centers’ unique expertise; their independence from the Federal Government; and their ability to leverage the State and local perspective on behalf of the National homeland security mission, which includes counterterrorism. Formally standardizing all aspects of fusion center operations would be disadvantageous. Over the past three years, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts have been targeted to assist fusion centers in developing plans, policies, and standard operating procedures. The goal has been to achieve capacity and standardized capability – namely the Critical Operational Capabilities – across the National Network, while allowing individually tailored processes for each fusion center. Although much work remains, these efforts appear to have improved consistency and standardization, and have helped to establish a common “language” across the National Network.

• The Federal Government should continue to facilitate and enable fusion center development in order to ensure that centers have the capacity necessary to fulfill their role as National mission partners. This must include continued improvements in information sharing. However, State and local stakeholders, including the fusion centers themselves, must take ownership and be a driving force behind much of the requisite growth moving forward. In order for the National Network to develop fully, a greater level of commonality and unified direction is necessary.

• The lack of a comprehensive State and locally-driven National Strategy for Fusion Centers reflecting the equities of fusion centers’ diverse stakeholders is a barrier to the National Network reaching its full potential. A comprehensive Federal Strategy for Fusion Centers is also necessary to explain how and why the Federal Government engages with fusion centers, guide Federal planning, serve as the foundation to develop additional performance and value-based metrics, and drive Federal resource allocation to fusion centers. The lack of these two strategies stands in the way of maximum efficiency, effectiveness, and the ability of the National Network to provide full benefit to the National homeland security mission.

• Thus far, fusion center metrics have primarily focused on measuring capacity and capability rather than “bang for the buck.” Due to the inherent difficulty in determining the success of prevention activities, stakeholders struggle with how to accurately, adequately, and tangibly measure the value of fusion centers to the National homeland security mission, and particularly the counterterrorism mission. Although great strides have been made, the current metrics – including the five performance measures included in the 2012 annual Fusion Center Assessment – are only a partial measure, and do not alone demonstrate overall success or failure of the National Network. Future metrics should reflect the values articulated in a comprehensive National Strategy for Fusion Centers and companion Federal Strategy for Fusion Centers. Further, there are not currently any tracking mechanisms in place to provide a complete picture, even quantitatively, of how fusion center-gathered information affects Federal terrorism or criminal cases or other homeland security mission areas. This is a significant gap that must be corrected in the short term in order to show the value of the National investment.

Much more here:

http://publicintelligence.net/chs-fusion-centers/

[Arctic Dave]

1. Creepy language.

You can't read that and not think fascism.

[limpyhobbler]

2. A huge threat to freedom and a waste of money.

[GiaGiovanni]

3. For a long time, these centers were only being discussed on

"conspiracy" websites. Now that they've hit the mainstream, people are still ignoring them. Cognitive dissonance?

[The Straight Story]

4. I think it might just be too much to take in with everything else - AND

They don't make the news really so hard to find stories on them.

[GiaGiovanni]

6. That makes sense

I forget when I first heard about these, but it was a while ago.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Wait, I was told right here non of this is happening

You and I need to adjust our tinfoil...it's a conspiracy theory they tell me.

[KoKo]

7. Sounds like we are creating or created a Massive Shadow Government..

and it's not responsible to the people or those who represent the people.

I wonder if the Shadow Government even knows what they are doing. And with the difference in technical skills those in charge and the lack of accountability of the Outside Contractors this could get out of hand too easily. It probably already is out of hand with the amount of information that could be used by anyone with access.

I'm sooo sick of this use of "The Homeland."

The Committee strongly believes that the National Network is a National asset that needs to realize its full potential to help secure the Homeland. Based on the Committee’s long history of oversight of the fusion centers’ development, it appears that the National Network is on a path of continued growth, improvement, and increasing value to both the Federal Government and the fusion centers’ individual customers. In addition to significant numbers of State and local partners represented, site visits revealed over 20 different Federal offices and agencies with personnel assigned across the 32 visited fusion centers, suggesting that fusion centers provide value to a wide variety of Federal agencies.