Nowadays the issue of information sharing among different low enforcement agencies of the United States has become vitally important for the effective prevention of terrorism threats and other possible dangers that can cause damage to a large number of people. The events of September 11, 2011 revealed that the lack of cooperation between various intelligence structures can lead to the coordination failure, thus exposing the whole country to the high risk of terrorist acts. Therefore, the US government decided to improve the network of connections between police and national and military intelligence in order to stimulate the process of information sharing.
However, the adoption of new legislation and the creation of new institutions aimed exactly at facilitating the information sharing have not solved existing problems entirely. The reasons that continue to cause difficulties in cooperation between different agencies can be partly explained by the law enforcement system itself. Thus, in this paper we are going to identify improvements made in this domain. Then we will explain why the information sharing is so crucial for the effective prevention of crimes and terrorist acts. Our last part will be devoted to the analysis of still existing problems and the ways of their elimination.
In the post - 9/11 era the way how the information should be shared has changed significantly. The US government tried to act mainly in three directions: i) rethinking of the traditional role of local police, ii) creation of the proper institutional framework aimed at the establishment of information sharing network, iii) improvement of mutual trust between different levels of law enforcement agencies in the country. Moreover, some of the policies tried to affect the philosophy of both policing and information sharing.
Firstly, government tried to transform the role of local police. Although local police is often perceived as less organized and less professional, there are no any reliable evidences that can confirm it. At the same time local police is the primary source of information because it acts in the immediate closeness to general public. This, in turn, enables local officers to gather important information within the local communities even more effectively than some federal agencies can do it. If local police succeeds in establishing mutual respect and trust between locales and its executives, it will be more likely that people will share their information with government officials without any compulsion. That is why government has put a lot of efforts in changing the perception of local police. Previously federal agencies considered their colleagues from local police as ineffective and unreliable. Now the situation has slightly improved, and more federal executives agree that local policing is the key source of information because local officers act both as “first preventers” and “first responders” during the emergency. Furthermore, current policies are also aimed at the way how local police interacts with local communities, encouraging local officers to establish good relationships with the latter (Cordner & Scarborough, 2010).
The second part of changes relates to the institutional framework. Definitely, the creation of new institutions working solely at the sphere of information sharing is a good step towards the increasing of overall effectiveness. For example, the US government created new National Counterterrorism Center and established the Information Sharing Environment. Simultaneously, changes were done in the way how the already existing agencies operate. For instance, government improved the process of information collection within local police by introducing the Suspicious Activity Report. Nevertheless, one of the greatest emphases was made on the problem of “one-way” sharing of information. This problem appears when local police provides information to other federal agencies, but does not receive any important intelligence data in return. Of course, this situation negatively affects the cooperation between agencies, worsens their mutual trust and prevents from comprehensive sharing of information. Therefore, the US government encouraged federal agencies to share their own findings with colleagues from other institutions, thus reducing the negative impact of the asymmetric information sharing. Moreover, public officials try to improve the operation of state fusion centers that should serve as an effective tool of gathering and allocating of information between the parties concerned. That is why some government instructions, recommendations and legislation were introduced with respect to this issue.
Thirdly, the government officials paid attention to the question of proper cooperation between different agencies. Of course, cooperation between local police and federal agencies largely depends on the trust and overall relations that exist between them. As we have already stated above, these components left much to be desired due to the practice of asymmetric sharing of information and bad perception of each other. On the other hand, changes adopted in the institutional framework should, in theory, facilitate the rise of mutual trust and respect between different levels of law enforcement agencies in the country that, in turn, will lead to the better cooperation and sharing.
Unfortunately, although these changes did have effect (and continue to have) on the information sharing in the USA, the results did not meet the expectations anchored on the adopted policies. The core problem is that the law enforcement system in the USA is aimed not at the maximizing of central power efficiency, but at the limitation of its influence. Therefore, the coordination of operation of all these agencies, both at local and federal levels, remains to be extremely difficult. Sometimes cooperation between agencies can move to direct competition that poses serious risks for the security of population. Moreover, some new institutions established in order to favor the information sharing do not operate to their full extent. Undoubtedly, we can argue that local and federal agencies didn`t get accustomed to it because of its newness. However, it may seem that with the introduction of many new institutions the whole system has become somewhat complicated and confusing. Within this system local police and federal agencies and military do not have any clear line of communication that still needs to be developed.
Moreover, the philosophy of information sharing tends to be old-fashioned and quite conservative. A lot of immediate executives of different agencies decide not to share information because they can possibly use it on their own behalf in the future. Thus, the problem of shifting the information sharing from the “need to know” to the ‘need to share” basis still exists. However, analyzing this problem we come back to the issue of trust. Without trust any effective cooperation seems impossible.
Now it is time for us to define the possible ways how to eliminate or reduce the negative impact of still existing drawbacks of the system. It is quite reasonable that the vast majority of efforts should be aimed at ensuring trust one more time. However, although it sounds quite simple and superficially, the implementation of policies aimed at achieving this is very complicated. One of the possible ways is to make additional changes in the functioning of state fusions centers. Although the idea lying behind the creation of these centers is that they should serve equally to all levels of law enforcement agencies, the reality is that they tend to support the practice of asymmetric sharing of information. This situation should be changed and state fusion centers should start providing information to all the parties concerned on the just basis. Moreover, it would be a good idea for them to enter into the model agreements with other law enforcement agencies, thus fostering and speeding up the process of information sharing. And the last, but not the least recommendation relates to the meetings where different intelligence officials discus important issues. Nowadays such meetings are both quite rare and ineffective. Thus, their frequency should be increased and the principles how they are held should be revised.
References
Cordner, G. & Scarborough, K. (January 2010). Information Sharing: Exploring the Intersection of Policing with National and Military Intelligence. Homeland Security Affairs, no. 6. Retrieved from http://www33.zippyshare.com/v/hNOzPcP6/file.html
