• Domestic terrorismFusion centers, created to fight domestic terrorism, suffering from mission creep: Critics

    Years before the 9/11 attacks, law enforcement agencies throughout the country, alarmed by the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, began to monitor and investigate signs of domestic terrorism. That increased monitoring, and the need for coordination among various law enforcement agencies, gave rise to the fusion centers. A new report, which is supported by current and former law enforcement and government officials, concludes that post-9/11, fusion centers and the FBI teams which work with them shifted their focus from domestic terrorism to global terrorism and other crimes, including drug trafficking.Experts say that at a time when the number of domestic terrorism threats, many of which are linked to right-wing extremist groups, is surging, law enforcement must refocus their attention on the threats from within.

  • CBPCBP IA’s SAREX: Tomsheck’s program goes rogue – Pt. 4

    By Robert Lee Maril

    As Congressional legislation addresses multiple issues involving immigration and border security, Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs (CBP IA) faces increased scrutiny. The widening scandal at CBP IA, the watchdog agency of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is based upon acrimonious allegations by James Tomsheck against what he labels CBP’s systemic failure to meet professional standards including the proper investigation of criminal behavior by its own employees. According to former CBP IA employees, internal memos, and related government documents and reports, however, it now appears that Tomsheck’s own agency may be guilty of a number of allegations against it. Of particular interest is Tomsheck’s attempt in 2011 and 2012 to fashion the Suspicious Activity Reports Exploitation Initiative (SAREX) program, which at the time appeared as a reasonable strategy to deter CBP employees from corruption and other criminal behavior.

  • EUEU launches a series of counterterrorism initiatives

    Using Europol, which has new authority to collect information on people who have never been convicted of a criminal offense, the EU is planning to create a more centralized intelligence sharing system which will allow security services to monitor and track suspects throughout the union. EU officials are also looking to improve information sharing with Arab countries.

  • Information sharingDHS’s intelligence framework and analytic planning process ineffective: GAO

    A new Government Accountability Office(GAO) reportsays DHS’s intelligence framework and analytic planning process are ineffective, raising concerns about the department’s ability to coordinate and prioritize intelligence strategies despite having systems put in place for integrating intelligence and analytic activities.

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  • Intelligence sharingHouse passes measure requiring review of intelligence sharing practices

    In the bill is the first legislation written in response to shortcomings revealed by the Boston marathon bombings,the House of Representatives last Friday approved a measure which requires the FBI, DHS, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review their information sharing practices and report back to Congress within ninety days. Post-bombing investigation concluded that had intelligence agencies shared information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, prior to the incident, local law enforcement authorities may have been able to monitor Tsarnaev’s actions.

  • Boston marathonReport critical of intelligence, law enforcement Boston Marathon information sharing

    A 37-page report released by the House Committee on Homeland Security, asserts that the FBI and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) all failed properly to coordinate and investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the years before his involvement in the deadly bombing attack at the Boston Marathon in 2013. “There were opportunities in which greater sharing of information might have altered the course of events, the report goes on to say, “Such failures must not be allowed to persist.”

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  • CybersecuritySnowden’ leaks derailed important cybersecurity initiatives

    Edward Snowden’s leaks created such a climate of distrust around the NSA that many important cybersecurity initiatives died, stalled, or became non-starters. Security experts say that this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that the result of these stalled cybersecurity initiatives is that the United States is now more vulnerable to cyberattacks on its infrastructure, and government agencies and American corporations more exposed to sensitive information being compromised and stolen. U.S. officials have found it more difficult to respond to cyberattacks from Russia, China, and elsewhere. “All the things [the NSA] wanted to do are now radioactive, even though they were good ideas,” says James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS).

  • Forensic ballisticsImproving the national ballistic data base

    A team of researchers identified a number of areas of improvement in a national database of forensic ballistics evidence used to link guns to violent crimes. The report, just released by the National Institute of Justice, already has led to improvements in the system called the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), which is operated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

  • African securityKenya, Somalia to create joint anti-terrorism task force

    Al-Shabaab’s attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi last month has prompted security officials in Kenya and Somalia to consider the creation of a joint task force which will share intelligence, monitor activity, and track finances relating to terrorist groups operating in East Africa. Also under discussion is the establishment of a joint East African paramilitary force with jurisdiction throughout the region.

  • Venture capitalIID raises $8 million to scale shared cyberintelligence offering

    Despite the growing danger posed by cybercrime, information vital to stemming the tide is fragmented across the Internet today. Pockets of data about threat activity are siloed within the repositories of individual enterprises, government organizations, vendor networks, and research institutions. IID’s ActiveTrust enables enterprises and government agencies to combat the rising frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks by sharing cyber incident data in real time. IID has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), and said it will use the investment to accommodate growing demand for ActiveTrust.

  • Information sharingThe DHS intelligence sharing it is and isn’t doing

    By Lee Maril

    The problems with inter-governmental information sharing are not the result of technology; technology per se rarely is the genuine factor leading to institutional error; certainly it can be, but all too often it is slandered and defamed as if it were human; in agency after agency, however, DHS computers simply do what they are told to do as determined by their managers who follow formal or informal institutional policies

  • SurveillanceFBI questions its relationship with NYPD, pt. 2

    In the first part of this article, we reported that the FBI’s relationship with the NYPD Intelligence Division has become strained, and as a result information exchange has been impaired as the FBI and other jurisdictions have objected to some of the actions NYPD has taken; today, we report on the NYPD’s view

  • SurveillanceFBI questions its relationship with the NYPD, pt. 1

    The split between the the FBI and the NYPD continues to grow, as the NYPD Intelligence Division takes on a far-reaching and aggressive role in intelligence gathering

  • Record sharingUpdated solution allows quick, secure information sharing

    Visual Alert 2 enables law enforcement agencies to get real-time access to police records through Pennsylvania’s Law Enforcement Justice Information System (LEJIS) and other authorized information sharing networks while the department maintains secure control of the information it shares

  • Guest columnThe challenge of fighting Lashkar-e-Toiba

    By Bidisha Biswas

    In her debut guest column, Bidisha Biswas, an associate professor of political science at Western Washington University, explores the threat that Lashkar-e-Toiba poses to the United States as well as India and Pakistan and what can be done to stop the extremist group