FACEBOOK, FUSION CENTERS, POLICE STATE, INTELLIGENCE

Robert Tosh Plumlee

What is a Fusion Center you ask? ( the concept was pure at one time but has now become contaminated into a political gathering system for special interest projects as well as other gathering assignments assigned by these special interest organizations)

"... A fusion center is an information sharing center, many of which were jointly created between 2003 and 2007 under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice.

They are designed to promote information sharing at the federal level between agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. military, and state- and local-level government. As of July 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recognized at least 72 fusion centers. Fusion centers may also be affiliated with an Emergency Operations Center that responds in the event of a disaster.

The fusion process is an overarching method of managing the flow of information and intelligence across levels and sectors of government to integrate information for analysis.[1] That is, the process relies on the active involvement of state, local, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies—and sometimes on non-law enforcement agencies (e.g., private sector)—to provide the input of raw information for intelligence analysis. As the array of diverse information sources increases, there will be more accurate and robust analysis that can be disseminated as intelligence.

A two-year senate investigation found that "the fusion centers often produced irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence reporting to DHS, and many produced no intelligence reporting whatsoever."[2][3] The report also said that in some cases the fusion centers violated civil liberties or privacy.[4]

Contents [hide]
1 Common misconceptions
2 Fusion process
3 Criticism
3.1 MIAC report
3.2 Senate report
3.3 2009 Virginia terrorism threat assessment
3.4 2011 Illinois fusion center finds water pump was "hacked"; the FBI disagrees
3.5 Washington State Fusion Center
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Common misconceptions[edit]

This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (June 2013)
Although the phrase has been widely used, there are often misconceptions about the function of fusion centers. Perhaps the most common is that the center is a large room full of work stations where the staff are constantly responding to inquiries from officers, investigators, and agents. This vision is more accurately a watch center or an investigative support center—not an intelligence fusion center.

Another common misconception is that the fusion center is minimally staffed until there is some type of crisis whereupon representatives from different public safety agencies converge in staff workstations to manage the crisis. This staffing model more accurately describes an emergency operations center, not an intelligence fusion center. The fusion center is not an operational center but a support center driven by analysis.[1]

Fusion process[edit]
The fusion process proactively seeks to identify perceived threats and stop them before they occur. A fusion center is typically organized by amalgamating representatives from different federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies into one physical location. However, some fusion centers gather information not only from government sources, but also from their partners in the private sector.[5][6] Each representative is intended to be a conduit of raw information from his or her agency, a representative who can infuse that agency-specific information into the collective body of information for analysis. Conversely, when the fusion center needs intelligence requirements the representative is the conduit back to the agency to communicate, monitor, and process the new information needs.[1] Similarly, the agency representative ensures that analytic products and threat information are directed back to one’s home agency for proper dissemination. According to the fusion center guidelines, a fusion center is defined as “a collaborative effort of two or more agencies that provide resources, expertise, and/or information to the center with the goal of maximizing the ability to detect, prevent, apprehend, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity. The intelligence component of a fusion center focuses on the intelligence process, where information is collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed, and disseminated. Nontraditional collectors of intelligence, such as public safety entities and private sector organizations, possess important information that can be fused' with law enforcement data to provide meaningful information and intelligence about threats and criminal activity.”[7]

State and local police departments provide both space and resources for the majority of fusion centers. The analysts working there can be drawn from DHS, local police, or the private sector. A number of fusion centers operate tip hotlines and also invite relevant information from public employees, such as sanitation workers or firefighters.[8]