Abstract
The terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 revealed the need for information sharing between different local, state, and federal agencies. This resulted in the formation of Department of Homeland Security to coordinate the counterterrorism efforts. The Department created fusion centers that served as facilities of gathering and analyzing information from relevant agencies. The fusion centers have faced constant criticism from researchers regarding their effectiveness and spending but have been successful in stopping several terrorist plans. This has saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars. However, the numerous agencies working towards the same goal has brought about the issue of jurisdiction causing agencies to collide over turf authority. DHS has also realized that it can reap some benefits from involving different community stakeholders in the fight against terrorism especially the ones in Arab-American and Islamic-American communities.
Introduction
The prevention, deterrence, and response to both domestic and foreign terrorist attacks against United States citizens has always been a challenging task. Following the Tokyo subway system nerve gas attack and the Oklahoma City bombing both in 1995, caused the United States to invoke a new policy to combat terrorism through the Presidential Decision Directive 39 adopted on 1995 (Yim, 2002). The policy enumerated the responsibilities for different federal agencies in combating terrorism.
However, the September 11 attacks on the United States showed the lack of a national program to integrate the information known by the different agencies. As seen from the attacks, the terrorists boldly executed their plans even though their strategies were concealed. They used their real names to enroll in flight programs while making no effort to hide their disinterest in taking off or landing a commercial plane. The terrorist also used their real names to reserve flight tickets, used a common address and openly communicated via the internet. Under normal circumstances, these instances should have raised an alarm to the intelligence community notifying them of the potential threat. As such, it was deemed necessary to create a fusion program where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) could share the information gathered internationally and locally. This resulted in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that in turn created local fusion centers to synchronize local, state and federal efforts. This was to compensate for the absence of a large-scale program to counter domestic terrorism.
Working of Local and State Fusion Centers
Terrorists conduct many activities before attacks that are usually very minor to be noticed by the FBI. However, local authorities encounter most of these activities in their daily patrols. The fusion centers are the main information sharing facilities for terrorist activities through identification of patterns and facilitation of interdiction and coordination. They accumulate and equip the local, state, and federal agencies with basic intelligence about terror plots prior to engagement. The centers operate based on the concept that if enough information is shared by the various local, state, and federal agencies then dots will be connected leading to the observation of warnings and emergence of answers that can be vital in defending the country against domestic threats. Analysts from the agencies are located in the fusion centers to merge and analyze the received data and create a larger information pool. The fusion centers work with Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) to offer strategic intelligence concerning regional interests in a bid to effectively cover all domestic threats (Devine, 2014). The centrality enables better intelligence that assists various policy-makers in making the correct decisions regarding crime, counterterrorism, and emergency response.
Despite the positive attributes associated with the centers, there have been many concerns raised regarding the inefficiencies and failures concerning the state and local fusion centers. Researchers have cited the breakdown in intelligence fusion, analysis, and dissemination as a major reason why the fusion centers should be terminated. Researchers also argue that the information from the centers lead to tactical analysis as opposed to strategic analysis necessary to assess the trend in terrorism. For the centers to be able to offer strategic analysis then they must be allowed access to data obtained at higher levels of the intelligence community. The researchers suggest that for the fusion centers to offer significant contributions towards counterterrorism, they have to move from a reactive to a proactive position. Another concern is the lack of continuity observed in the centers caused by differences in factors such as funding, staffing, a standardized metric or measuring the success or failure of the centers. Therefore, some researchers are of the view that the information offered by the centers is shallow in terms of national efforts against terrorism.
Success of the Synchronization of Local, State, and Federal Efforts
However, there are also many researchers who support the adoption of the information centers citing the absence of a large-scale domestic attack in the United States as a direct impact of the synchronization efforts. There are numerous cases where fusion centers have played a crucial role in the prevention of terrorist attacks on the United States soil. An example of such a case was the plan to bomb the New York City subway system.
On September 11th, 2009, the fusion centers played a major role in the successful termination of the plan by Najibullah Zazi to detonate explosives in the New York City subway system. The attack is said to have had the potential to be the worst attack in America since the September 11 attacks. Zazi began collecting the necessary supplies needed to assemble the explosive devices but was unable to assemble the device on September 6th. Zazi is said to have sent a string of emails saying that the marriage between flour and ghee oil was ready and that he needed the amount of them. These emails are what alerted the authorities concerning the plan since baking and marriage were known metaphors used by terrorist to signifying bombs and suicide attacks. The Denver FBI office in conjunction with the California Information Analysis Center (CIAC) launched 24-hour surveillance on Zazi. The suspect rented a car and made the trip from Denver to New York where his car was towed and searched. Only a laptop was containing bomb-making notes was discovered in the trunk of the car. However, Zazi noticed the surveillance while in New York and decided to abort the plans.
The agencies credited for alleviating the attack included the DHS, FBI, and New York and Denver police departments. In an interview, the former head of the Denver FBI said that CIAC played a crucial role in the case by providing analytical support. CIAC’s analysts also uncovered information regarding the Zazi’s friends who were conspirators in the case. The local state trooper who pulled over the suspect at the interstate is the one who found out the suspect was headed to New York.
Economic Impacts of the Synchronization Efforts
Determining the value of information provided by local and state fusion centers requires assigning numbers regarding expenditures and savings. Some fusion centers are funded exclusively by the federal government, some by the state, and others by a combination of the state and federal governments. Between 2004 and 2009, the federal government financing of fusion centers countrywide was $426 million that roughly equates to $71 million every year. This figure is in-line with the information provided by the National Network for Fusion Centers that reported $76.71 million, $67.87 million, and $57.87 million in direct federal funding in 2011, 2012, and 2013 respectively. The amount received by each fusion center varies depending on the success and maturity of the centers among other factors. However, it is important to note that the lack of a large attack on America has caused the federal funding to DHS to reduce.
The varying nature of terrorist attacks makes it difficult to ascertain the exact cost of an attack. Benjamin Zycher uses the information from the September 11 attacks to calculate predictions. Zychers computes the numbers based on the severity of the costs. He discovered that there exist a 20-25% ratio between physical injuries to people and property destruction. The calculations take into consideration economic and physical recovery. Zycher divides terrorist attacks into three categories based on the number of deaths and injuries. The moderate category involves 1,175 deaths and 8,700 injuries, the severe category 15,500 deaths and 114,500 injuries, the nuclear category 50,000 deaths and 300,000 injuries (Zycher, 2003). Zycher then uses the found ratio between injuries and destruction of property together with the reduction in national Gross Domestic product to compute economic costs of terrorist attacks. The moderate category is estimated to cost $11.3 billion annually, while severe and nuclear categories estimated to cost $183.3 billion and $465.0 billion respectively. From this information, the cost of any alleviated terrorist attack can be calculated successfully.
Legal Implications of the Synchronization Efforts
The FBI that is the lead agency in terrorism-related cases has more than 100 JTTFs in its field offices across the country. The JTFFs are multiagency teams comprising of investigators, analysts, Special Weapons Attacks Teams and other specialists. The primary role of JTTFs is to lead the cases and gather evidence concerning the cases to be used for prosecution in the court of law. The JTFFs also share the gathered information with the state and local authorities to broaden and coordinate counterterrorism efforts. In 2012, an FBI official stated that “There are over 6,000 open JTTF investigations, over 4,400 federal, state, local law enforcement agents working in them (Bjelopera & Finklea, 2014.”
The existence of multiple law enforcement agencies often brings the challenge of overlap of actual and perceived agency jurisdictions that often leads to intersection and conflict between the agencies. This is due to blurry lines of agencies’ missions and authorities. Although overlapping jurisdictions and authority encourage interagency collaboration, they often lead to turf battles between agencies. This has led to the adoption of some tools to be used in mitigation of the investigative overlaps and enhance information sharing between relevant agencies. These include the formation of multijurisdictional task forces meant to unite law enforcement agencies with similar missions and signing of a memorandum of understandings on specific cases.
Social Impacts of the Synchronization Efforts
After September 11 attacks, it was evident that Homeland Security cannot be left to law enforcement alone and requires the input of the community. Some local law enforcement agencies have already adopted community policing as a way of dealing with traditional crimes. This method can also be easily used to address terrorism-related crimes because of its similarities with traditional crime. This is because there are many similarities between traditional crimes and terrorism. Terrorist commit ancillary crimes just like any other criminals to finance their terrorist activities. Also, terrorist groups are well-trained and organized and often show the sophistication of other organized crime groups.
An efficient community policing program in regards to terrorism cases should include collaboration not only with law enforcement agencies but also with different stakeholders in the community. The stakeholders may include citizens, businesses, emergency management, public health, and other public or private institutions with an interest in terrorism prevention or response. To take full advantage of the skills required to plan and respond to terrorist acts means law enforcement officers make meaningful partnerships. In this case, homeland security should build trust with Arab-Americans and Islamic-Americans who presumably are the ones who might have the most information regarding terrorist activities (Docobo, 2005). They should do this not by making empty promises but proving to the people that they can protect them in their homes, places of work and worship and other public places.
Summary of Findings
Protection of United States citizens from domestic terrorist attacks has always been a challenge to the government. However, DHS was formed to ease the task by coordination and sharing of information between local, state, and federal agencies. This is done through the fusion centers that have received criticism from different researchers. Despite this fact, the centers have proved vital in prevention of many terrorist attacks as in the case of the planned bombing of the New York City subway system. This has caused the federal government to show its support for the centers through funding although the amount is slowly reducing because there have not been any recent terrorist attack attempts on the nation. It is possible to find the amount of economic impacts of any terrorist attack using the concept developed by Zycher based on injuries and property destruction. A problem that is observed in the synchronization efforts is inter-agency conflict over turf jurisdiction. However, such cases can be easily solved through signing of MOU’s by conflicting parties. Homeland security could get some benefits from building relationships with Arab and Islamic communities living in America because they may serve as good information sources concerning terrorist activities.
Conclusion
The September 11 attacks revealed the importance of local, state, and federal agencies collaboration in fighting terrorism. As such, fusion centers have been developed and are being used as facilities for information sharing between the different agencies. The centers have proved vital in some cases and have helped stop potential terrorist attacks in the United States. This has caused the number of terrorist threats in the nation to drop significantly with no major attack witnessed after the September 11 attack. This should be basis enough to uphold the synchronization of the local, state, and federal agencies efforts to counter terrorism.
References
Bjelopera, J. P., & Finklea, K. (2014, June). Domestic Federal Law Enforcement Coordinations. Retrieved from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R43583.pdf
Devine, T. (2014). An Examination of the Effectiveness of State and Local Fusion Centers Toward Federal Counterterrorism Efforts. Retrieved from http://academics.utep.edu/Portals/4302/Student%20research/Capstone%20projects/Devine_State%20and20Local%20Fusion%20Centers.pdf
Docobo, J. (2005, June ). Community policing as the primary prevention strategy for homeland security at the local law enforcement level. Retrieved June 6, 2016, from https://www.hsaj.org/articles/183
Yim, R. A. (2002). National Preparedness. Untied States General Accounting Office
Zycher, B. (2003). A preliminary benefit/cost framework for counterterrorism public expenditures. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
