Latest in Homeland Security: State and Local Role
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021, at 9:30 a.m., the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism will hold a hearing on state and local responses to counterterrorism.
This interesting article on the NYPD's use of data analytics came across my desk the other day. Here is the abstract:
The New York City Police Department’s Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center integrates data from a variety of sources, including sensors (cameras, license plate readers, and environmental detectors) and records (arrests, complaints, summonses, 911 calls, etc.).
The privacy- and oversight-relevant news comes to us via this Associated Press story.
The Brennan Center for Justice released today a new report titled “National Security and Local Police.” They conducted surveys of more than a dozen major police departments and their affiliated state or city intelligence “fusion centers” (funded heavily by federal grants) and Joint Terrorism Task Forces (FBI-led interagency and intergovernmental coordination groups for terrorism investigations). The Brennan Center report d
Over at Security States, I have this piece up, about the proliferation of city- and state-operated surveillance technologies---and the need to pair collection rules for these technologies with effective use and access rules.
Earlier today I posted a commentary on "Boston Bombings: Local Police and Counterterrorism Intelligence," based on reported claims that the FBI failed to pass on important threat information to the Boston Police Department, and further reported claims that -- if true -- this points to a need for greater information sharing. My main point was that in thinking about the lessons of the Boston Bombings for domestic counterterrorism intelligence, we should be focused less reflexively on the usual issue of info-sharing an
The New York Times had a story yesterday headlined “F.B.I. Didn’t Tell Boston Police of Warning on Brother”:
Police Commissioner Edward Davis said that though some of his officers worked with the F.B.I. on a joint terrorism task force, they did not know about the Russian tip or the bureau’s subsequent inquiry, which involved an interview with Mr.
I'm not at all happy that today's news out of upstate New York proves the point that Jack and I (and a cast of dozens) have tried to make about domestic use of lethal force, but it's worth pointing out the following facts:
The target of the government's use of force, Kurt Myers, is a U.S. citizen. He was killed on U.S.Carrie Cordero, Georgetown’s Director of National Security Studies and a former Justice Department official, writes in with the following thoughts on fusion centers:
As Matt Waxman noted last month, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations recently published a report entitled, "Federal Support for and Involvement in State and Local Fusion Centers." Having been previously involved in the development of various guidelinA few weeks ago I posed the following questions in relation to the Constitution Project's report on state and major urban area intelligence Fusion Centers, which DHS set up and funded after 9/11:
One reason why I’m interested in this issue is because so much public debate about terrorism and domestic intelligence to date has focused on information collection — like NSA wiretapping, FBI requests for personal info or transactional data, police sno