Intelligence Sharing Essay.

Intelligence Sharing Essay.

The events that occurred  on the 9/11 were an essential turning point  for  the intelligence community such that, it was necessary for all the security and law enforcement agencies involved to re-examine some of the flaws that existed in the system and make  the necessary changes (Jenkins, Liepman & Willis, 2014). Besides, it was also after this landmark incident that it cam e to the realization that  both the  intelligence agencies and law enforcement  forces posed  vital information that could be used to prevent the attack or minimize its effects  but didn’t share  with one another.Intelligence Sharing Essay.

There is a crucial benefit that local enforcement agencies have that homeland security clearly doesn’t. This is the ability to randomly see and interact with people one-on-one. For instance, there are some of the most wanted criminals that have been pursued by federal agencies for long but their efforts have been futile. A major example is Eric Rudolph who launched a bomb in Atlanta Olympics (Jenkins, Liepman & Willis, 2014). However, the local police in North Carolina have ever arrested him for a traffic offence Clearly, if the local law enforcement agencies had the necessary details about such individuals, the efforts of federal agencies would probably have borne fruits.

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Local and state law enforcement agencies do collect and analyze surveillance, statistics and reports with an aim of having an overall representation of the status of a community or a region.  Unless the information collected is followed through with the necessary actions possibly by the action arm of law enforcement agencies or the military, the information collected can easily be rendered worthless (Jenkins, Liepman & Willis, 2014).

Therefore, from a personal perspective, it is necessary for local and state law enforcement and intelligence agencies to collaborate for a more efficient and effective intelligence sharing process. Since local and state law enforcement are often on ground, it is undeniable that are always privy to more details as compared to those at the federal level. Besides, local and state law enforcement officers are deeply attached around areas the jurisdictions they work within. This means that, they can go to whichever extends to safeguard their communities and families from whichever type of harm.

One way that local and State law enforcement can be used in homeland intelligence is by maximizing on fusion centers. Fusion centers have proven to be very essential in ensuring that that federal, local and state level of government, private entities and those that own critical infrastructure can evenly share vital information on security, terrorism and other threats (Eack, 2008). The major goal of fusion centers is to ensure that huge volumes of information are fused together to form intelligence that is highly useful at all levels of government and for the intelligence community. Apart from being central locations where many agencies share intelligence, a positive impact has been made by fusion centers by helping to bridge the gap between local and state governments and homeland security intelligence (Eack, 2008). It is also worth recognizing that, these fusion centers have helped to minimize the waste of time and unnecessary delays between the necessary agencies. Ultimately, the success, efficiency and effectiveness at all levels of government will significantly increase.Intelligence Sharing Essay.

Sharing of intelligence among different federal agencies is complex and usually confusing. Despite the fact that having a single point of contact to facilitate sharing of intelligence among different agencies is critical, it is vital to provide clarification and simplify the process. In contemporary U.S., multiple federal players have diverse mission and goals exist in the intelligence community. There are different rules on how and where intelligence should be shared among the agencies. Different agencies have different abilities to conduct intelligence as they have different infrastructure. Sharing intelligence is useless unless the agencies can use the information. Different agencies rely on personal relationships as the major means of facilitating the flow of intelligence information.

Despite various efforts by the federal government to facilitate intelligence sharing, there are still various obstacles to intelligence sharing. Lack of an effective leader in the Department of Homeland Security who would champion intelligence sharing is one of the major obstacles of intelligence sharing. This limits the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to share information with other government agencies and the private sector. Despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has various linkages with the private sector and other agencies, it does not leverage on the linkages to improve intelligence sharing.[1]

Lack of knowledge of the critical infrastructure requirement among most members of the intelligence community is also one of the obstacles of intelligence sharing. Currently, no formal process that would help in identifying the requirements of vital infrastructure sector intelligence exists. In addition, there is no formal method of disseminating the intelligence to the intelligence community for collection, analysis and distribution. Despite the fact that various moves have been undertaken to correct this problem such as the establishment of Fusion Centers the problem still persists.

The tasking process of the intelligence community does not also consider the private sector infrastructure protection intelligence. Lack of a requirement to collect information that would be critical to the private sector makes it highly unlikely for the intelligence community to compile information that would enable the private sector to tackle various risks they may face.Intelligence Sharing Essay.

The intelligence community is also created in such a manner that it provides ‘finished intelligence.’ Therefore, they discard various leads and fragments of information if the information does not fit with the final intelligence report. This is despite the fact that the fragmentary bits of information may be critical to other agencies. Loss of information derails the intelligence work of other agencies. The amount of information that various agencies share with each other is usually reactionary. The agencies share very little anticipatory intelligence.[2]

The Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies usually lack of a sufficient number of analysts who are trained on how to use intelligence and vital intelligence infrastructure. Lack of trained analysts makes it difficult for other agencies to have credibility with other members of the intelligence community. Lack of a standardized training or selection of analysts makes it difficult for various agencies to share intelligence.[3]

Lack of consensus on what information should be shared between different government agencies also creates obstacles to information sharing. In addition, there is no consensus as to what critical infrastructure protection entails. This necessitates different government agencies to rely on personal relations to obtain information. People with experience in different government agencies are the most effective in sharing information.[4]

Despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security is tasked with the responsibility of disseminating critical intelligence reports it is not usually the agency from where the intelligence originates from. Therefore, it does not ‘own’ the information. This makes it be powerless in to disseminate the information. The agency that ‘owns’ the information should have to agree to the dissemination of information. Therefore, despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has the responsibility of disseminating information, it does not have the authority to disseminate the information. Department of Homeland Security has to build a consensus with the originating agency, which creates obstacles to intelligence sharing. In addition, since the department of Homeland Security is not the originating agency, it may not be sure as to what information it should disseminate. This creates excessive caution. Therefore, the Department of Homeland Security is more inclined to share less information instead of more information. Lack of trained analysts is partly to blame for the tendency of the Department of Homeland Security to share less information. Laws also create obstacles to inter-agency intelligence sharing. Various laws prevent the sharing of information among different government agencies. Certain laws also prevent the disclosure of the sources of intelligence and the means used to obtain the information.[5]

Technical problems also create obstacles to the sharing of information. Firewalls between the databases of different agencies in the intelligence community makes sharing of information become difficult. For agencies to share information there should be a secure communication channel. In most instances, this is non-existent. Therefore, the agencies desist from sharing information if they believe that a third party would tap it.Intelligence Sharing Essay.

Despite the fact that it would take time to tackle the obstacles of interagency intelligence sharing, improved resources and change in legislation would go a long towards tackling the problems. Problems associated with lack of willingness to cooperate with other agencies are more difficult to tackle. This is due to the fact that it involves agencies or representatives of agencies who make a willing decision not to cooperate or share information with other agencies.Intelligence Sharing Essay.