[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE SHARING WITH STATE, LOCAL, AND TRIBAL
LAW ENFORCEMENT: AN ASSESSMENT TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM
AND INTELLIGENCE
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 28, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-70
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Peter T. King, New York, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Daniel E. Lungren, California Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Henry Cuellar, Texas
Gus M. Bilirakis, Florida Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Paul C. Broun, Georgia Laura Richardson, California
Candice S. Miller, Michigan Danny K. Davis, Illinois
Tim Walberg, Michigan Brian Higgins, New York
Chip Cravaack, Minnesota Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Joe Walsh, Illinois Hansen Clarke, Michigan
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Ben Quayle, Arizona Kathleen C. Hochul, New York
Scott Rigell, Virginia Janice Hahn, California
Billy Long, Missouri Vacancy
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania
Blake Farenthold, Texas
Robert L. Turner, New York
Michael J. Russell, Staff Director/Chief Counsel
Kerry Ann Watkins, Senior Policy Director
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania, Chairman
Paul C. Broun, Georgia, Vice Chair Brian Higgins, New York
Chip Cravaack, Minnesota Loretta Sanchez, California
Joe Walsh, Illinois Kathleen C. Hochul, New York
Ben Quayle, Arizona Janice Hahn, California
Scott Rigell, Virginia Vacancy
Billy Long, Missouri Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York (Ex (Ex Officio)
Officio)
Kevin Gundersen, Staff Director
Zachary D. Harris, Subcommittee Clerk
Hope Goins, Minority Subcommittee Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Patrick Meehan, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence.............................. 1
The Honorable Brian Higgins, a Representative in Congress From
the State of New York, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence.............................. 3
Witnesses
Mr. Scott McAllister, Deputy Under Secretary, State and Local
Program Office, Office of Intelligence and Analysis, Department
of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 6
Joint Prepared Statement....................................... 7
Mr. Louis Quijas, Assistant Secretary, Office for State and Local
Law Enforcement, Deparment of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 11
Joint Prepared Statement....................................... 7
Mr. Eric Velez-Villar, Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Department of Justice:
Oral Statement................................................. 13
Prepared Statement............................................. 14
Ms. Maurita J. Bryant, Assistant Chief, Pittsburgh Bureau of
Police:
Oral Statement................................................. 16
Prepared Statement............................................. 17
Appendix
Questions Submitted by Chairman Patrick Meehan for Scott
McAllister and Louis F. Quijas................................. 33
Questions Submitted by Chairman Patrick Meehan for Eric Velez-
Villar......................................................... 37
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE SHARING WITH STATE, LOCAL, AND TRIBAL
LAW ENFORCEMENT: AN ASSESSMENT TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11
----------
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Patrick Meehan
[Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Meehan, Long, Cravaack, Higgins,
Hochul, and Hahn.
Mr. Meehan. The Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee
on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will come to order.
The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony
regarding an assessment of the Federal Government sharing
intelligence with State, local, and Tribal law enforcement
entities. I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
I would like to welcome everyone to today's hearing, and I
look forward to hearing from the witnesses on this important
issue, but before we begin the actual substance of the meeting,
I would like to take formal notice of the new Member sitting to
my left, Congressman Brian Higgins from Buffalo, New York, the
new Ranking Member of the subcommittee.
We have been discussing a little bit of ice hockey up here
for the last minute or so. These are important issues before
us. But I know from his very genuine and deep involvement in
the numerous issues we have had here before the subcommittee to
this year, he has been thoughtful and thorough in his approach,
and I look forward greatly to continuing the great
collaboration in a bipartisan fashion we have had on this
committee through the year.
I also want to take a moment to express formally for the
record my deep appreciation for the service from Congresswoman
Jackie Speier from California, who has left us to move to the
higher waters of the Armed Services Committee. But it was a
unique opportunity for some issues that related back to
Congresswoman Speier and her district. I know she reluctantly
handed over the sharing of the gavel, so to speak, on this
committee, but I am deeply appreciative of the great work that
she has done, had done, again, in a collaborative fashion, and
look forward to working with her on some of the issues in her
position. I am sure she will still remember the important work
we do in this subcommittee.
Over the last year, the subcommittee has held hearings on a
number of issues related to intelligence sharing and DHS's role
when coordinating with its State, local, and Tribal partners to
collect, analyze, share, and disseminate critical intelligence
to the public and to private stakeholders Nation-wide. It is an
important time right now, because we are 10 years after 9/11.
It is important we assess the role of fusion centers as members
of the National, State, and local intelligence and law
enforcement communities and ask the important questions about
their performance to date and discuss the outlook for the
future.
I had the opportunity to be the United States attorney in
Philadelphia after 9/11, took office just 6 days, and we as an
entire Nation were responding to the new challenge of
information sharing. I remember the initiation of fusion center
programs, and supported them.
However, today what was envisioned 10 years ago appears to
be different in some measures to what is currently in place
today. That may be the result of a logical evolution, and it
may very well be a good thing, but both the Government
Accountability Office and the DHS inspector general have
reported that DHS still lacks effective means to assess its
strategy to support State fusion centers. I think that is
something that we should be focused on to see how we can make
progress in that area.
There has been strides made, but I think there are a couple
of important questions that we need to ask. Where does DHS
stand on developing metrics and defining requirements to gauge
the efficacy, relevancy, and impact of fusion centers on local,
State, and Federal partners? How does DHS plan to hold fusion
centers to these measurable requirements? How will DHS and
Federal Government sustain fusion centers financially,
including determining a level of Federal funding and support
for each center, as we appreciate the great struggles that we
are have on the Federal level to deal with the budget deficit?
Then how does the DHS plan to standardize procedure for all
fusion centers to guide the type of information that is
collected, the methods utilized for collection, and the manner
in which it is analyzed?
I am also interested personally in understanding better the
guidelines in place at the National level and, more
importantly, at the State and local level to protect individual
privacy. As many of you on this panel are aware, the
Pennsylvania director of homeland security resigned following
revelations that an organization that had contracted with the
State Office of Homeland Security was collecting intelligence
on lawful citizen groups, including opponents of natural gas
drilling.
Now, I recognize this was not a fusion center case, and it
was a violation at the State level, but privacy is still
nonetheless a critical issue. We have spent a lot of time
working on the importance of protecting that with the Federal
agencies, but appreciate that, to the average person,
government is government, and activities by local departments
affiliated with homeland security that are conducting
surveillance and information and intelligence gathering, what
are they doing with that material and product? How is it being
protected against misuse or abuse?
I think the last issue, of course, is the budgets. As we
have said, we are living in a time of budget constraints. The
reality is, it is likely to continue. We are all being asked to
do more with less, and I hear--look forward to hearing from
today's witnesses on the important issues about how that may
affect their mission and how they think they can move forward,
if, in fact, we are going to be looking, notwithstanding all
the advocacy we will do to fund as fully as we can, but the
reality that there could be less support.
So at this point in time, the Chairman now recognizes the
Ranking Minority Member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from
New York, Mr. Higgins, for any statements he may have.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, my friend and the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, for his welcome. I look forward to
working with him.
I would also like to thank the Chairman for holding this
important hearing today and want to thank the witnesses for
their attendance and their testimony. Information sharing is an
integral part to our Nation's security. An environment in which
information is shared is where better decisions can be made and
ultimately in which people are safer.
This message is not new. It is something that has been on
our radar for the past 10 years. It is also something that the
Federal Government has been working to get right. Since
September 11, the Federal Government has developed many
initiatives expanding Federal efforts at information gathering
and sharing with State and local partners. We now have
information-sharing partnerships that we did not have on
September 12, 2001, such as fusion centers and the National
Joint Terrorism Task Force, which based on my experience has
been highly, highly effective.
Further, this administration has indicated that effective
information sharing throughout the Government is a key
priority. Over the past 3 years, three Executive Orders have
been issued to improve information sharing.
Although we have made improvements with information
sharing, we must not become complacent. We need specificity. We
need the Government to have a clear-cut definition of the
programs and activities that are most important to the homeland
security mission.
Further, in this budgetary environment, we do not want to
short-change security. However, as we extend financial and
human resources to these programs, their value should be
defined. Additionally, information sharing should have a
tailored approach. State and local officers must get the
assistance they need to be most effective in protecting the
people in their own communities. That means that when
intelligence officials are deployed to jurisdictions that they
have an interest in knowing the jurisdiction and that
jurisdiction's sensitivities.
That means that we must be cognizant of the entire threat.
The threat that exists in western New York may not be the same
as those that exist along the Southern Border. Also, we need
for the agencies as a whole, especially Department of Homeland
Security, to be willing participants and provide the necessary
support to assist State and local efforts. Unfortunately, in
November 2011, the Department of Homeland Security Office of
Inspector General found that there were improvements needed in
this area. I look forward to hearing the Department of Homeland
Security, what they have done to rectify this situation since
the release of that report.
Further, as we partner with jurisdictions, we must remember
that State and local officers know their jurisdictions best.
They also need to have a voice and should be heard. This is not
a new message, but for some reason one that we must continually
reinforce.
These are the challenges that we are here to explore today.
I hope that each of our witnesses will be forthcoming in your
assessments of these and other challenges that lie ahead for
the information-sharing environment. Only by helping us fully
understand the challenges ahead can we hope to work together to
craft solutions to these problems.
I welcome all of you here, and I look forward to your
testimony. I yield back.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Higgins.
Other Members of the committee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
Now, we are pleased to have a distinguished panel of
witnesses before us today on this important topic. The
Honorable Scott McAllister is the deputy under secretary for
State and Local Programs for the Office of Intelligence and
Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. In this role,
he manages the office responsible for Departmental and
interagency support to the National network of fusion centers.
Before coming to the Department, Mr. McAllister was the
chief of investigation of the Fort Myers Regional Operations
Center for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Mr.
McAllister also served as the State of Florida's deputy
homeland security adviser from 2007 to 2010. Prior to serving
as deputy homeland security adviser, Mr. McAllister previously
served as a special agent supervisor in charge of domestic
security and protective operations at the Miami division of the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Mr. McAllister brings more than 36 years of State and local
law enforcement expertise, including roles as a major crimes
detective, SWAT operator, and joint terrorism task force
agents. More importantly, as I understand, before he found the
sunny beaches of Florida, he came from southeastern
Pennsylvania, so he has got good roots.
The honorable Louis Quijas was appointed to the Department
of Homeland Security as assistant secretary for the Office for
State and Local Law Enforcement in July 2011. In this position,
Mr. Quijas serves as the principal Department-wide liaison with
State, local, and Tribal law enforcement, ensuring that both
relevant information and policy development are coordinated
with our non-Federal law enforcement partners.
Prior to coming to the Department, Mr. Quijas served as the
president of Datong Electronics North American operations.
Before entering the private sector, Mr. Quijas had a 36-year
career in Federal and local law enforcement. In 2002, while in
the FBI, Mr. Quijas was appointed FBI assistant director for
the Office of Law Enforcement Coordination. Prior to his
appointment in the FBI, Mr. Quijas was the chief of police for
the city of High Point, which I recollect from my days as a
prosecutor had a very aggressive, was it--an anti-gang and
anti-gun program that was Nationally recognized. So
congratulations. He accepted the position of chief of police
upon his retirement from Kansas City, Missouri, Police
Department after 25 years of service.
Thank you, Mr. Quijas, for being here.
Mr. Eric Velez-Villar is the assistant director for the
Directorate of Intelligence at the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Prior to being named to this position by
Director Mueller in 2012, Mr. Velez was the deputy assistant
director for the Directorate of Intelligence's intelligence
operations branch. That must be tough to get on a business
card.
Mr. Velez started his 27-year career with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation in 1985 as a computer specialist. Early
on in his career, he worked organized crime, drug, and public
corruption matters. In 2012, he served as the organized crime
and drug supervisor of the Los Angeles division, until he was
re-assigned to supervise Orange County's Joint Terrorism Task
Force.
In 2004, he was promoted to assistant special agent in
charge of the Los Angeles field office counterterrorism
program. In 2006, he was appointed as the deputy director of
terrorist training center. In 2008, Director Mueller appointed
Mr. Velez as the first special agent in charge of the newly
created Intelligence Division of the Los Angeles field office,
where he remained until being appointed to the Directorate of
Intelligence.
Last, from the great State of Pennsylvania, the assistant
chief Maurita Bryant is assistant chief for the operations
branch for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, where she oversees
all uniform and civilian personnel in the six police zones in
the special deployment division. Ms. Bryant is a 34-year
veteran of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, getting her start
in 1977. She worked as a plain-clothes officer. She was a
sergeant in the mobile crime unit, and she rose to commander of
Zone 5 Station.
Prior to her promotion to assistant chief in October 2006,
Ms. Bryant served in various capacities, including the
commander for narcotic, vice, and firearms trafficking and
commander in charge of major crimes and commander of the sex
assault and family crisis division. She is a 2004 graduate of
the 218th session of the FBI National Academy in Quantico and a
2005 graduate from the Police Executive Research Forum's Senior
Management Institute for Police in Boston, Massachusetts. She
is a 2010 graduate of the 26th Class of Leadership, Pittsburgh,
and an instructor for the Penn State Justice and Safety
Institute.
Thank you for being here, Ms. Bryant.
So for all panelists, we will give you the opportunity to
make your opening statements. We will appreciate the
recognition that we have been grateful for your submitted
written testimony, and I know you will do your best to try to
summarize your testimony and give us the essence as best you
can within what we give as the 5-minute parameters.
So let me begin by recognizing Deputy Under Secretary
McAllister for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT MC ALLISTER, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY, STATE
AND LOCAL PROGRAM OFFICE, OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. McAllister. Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Higgins,
and Members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to
testify today regarding the Department of Homeland Security's
efforts to keep our Nation safe from evolving threats through a
robust information sharing with our State, local, Tribal,
territorial, and private-sector homeland security partners.
As you know, I&A is a member of the intelligence community
and fills a unique role as the critical bridge between the
intelligence community and our State and local partners. I can
personally attest to the vital importance of that bridge.
Prior to joining the Department of Homeland Security in
December 2011, I enjoyed a 36-year career with State and local
law enforcement, which included investigating terrorism cases
on Joint Terrorism Task Force, overseeing a State fusion
center, and serving as the deputy homeland security adviser for
the State of Florida.
The collective progress made by the homeland security
community to effectively collaborate became readily apparent to
me during the decade I spent in State law enforcement post-9/
11. Last fall, I jumped at the opportunity to come to DHS to
build on that shared progress that I had previously been a part
of at a State and local level.
You have my formal written testimony, so I would like to
use my remaining time to discuss what DHS is doing to build
this momentum. The terrorist threat to the United States has
dramatically evolved since the 9/11 attacks. Today we face a
threat environment where violent extremism is not defined or
contained by international borders. This means we have to
address threats that are home-grown, as well as those that
originate abroad.
The threat of home-grown violent extremists fundamentally
changed who was best positioned to spot, investigate, and
respond to terrorist activity. State and local law enforcement
officers are now the ones most likely to be in a position to
detect the early signs of terrorist activity. This fact has
profound implications on how we go about securing the homeland.
The role of State and local partners in counterterrorism
efforts has never been more valuable. As a former Governor,
Secretary Napolitano understands the critical role State and
local governments play in protecting our communities. As the
Secretary has stated many times, homeland security begins with
hometown security.
DHS's efforts to facilitate the flow of information between
and among homeland security partners at all levels of
government is made up of several mutually reinforcing elements.
First, we have fundamentally changed the way the Department
provides information to law enforcement agencies by improving
the production and dissemination of classified and unclassified
information regarding threats to the homeland. DHS has
developed tailored products, including joint intelligence
bulletins, to meet the needs of the State and local partners.
Last April, DHS also implemented the new National Terrorism
Advisory System. This new system is designed to provide timely,
detailed information to the public and private sectors about
credible terrorist threats and recommended security measures.
Second, our approach includes maturing grassroots
intelligence and analytical capabilities within the State and
local environment through National network of fusion centers.
We are looking to ensure that every fusion center has core
capabilities that include the ability to analyze local
implications to National intelligence, thus enabling local
officials to be--better protect their communities.
We have also supported the development of fusion centers to
grants, training, technical assistance, and deployment of
Federal personnel. We currently have DHS intelligence officers
deployed to 64 fusion centers, and 63 centers now can receive
classified threat information through the Homeland Secure Data
Network.
Fusion centers are a force multiplier to inform and
contribute investigation initiating conducted by the FBI Joint
Terrorism Task Forces. Fusion centers and JTTFs have distinct,
but complementary roles in securing the homeland, and I would
like to thank Eric Velez for collaborating with us to
strengthen this relationship and to ensure consistent messaging
between fusion centers and the JTTF.
Third, DHS is partnering with the Department of Justice on
a Nation-wide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, which
establishes standard processes to identify, report, and share
suspicious activity. Together, we have transformed how we train
front-line officers to recognize and report suspicious
activities.
Finally, we recognize that an engaged and vigilant public
is vital to our efforts to protect our communities from
terrorism. Through the Nation-wide expansion of ``If You See
Something, Say Something'' campaign, we emphasize the
importance of reporting suspicious activity to the proper law
enforcement partners.
In conclusion, I look forward to continuing to further
develop the distributed homeland security architecture that we
have built since 9/11, in particular over the past 3 years, all
while protecting the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties
of all Americans.
Now, I would like to close by thanking the committee for
the opportunity to be here today, and more than happy to answer
any questions.
[The joint statement of Mr. McAllister and Mr. Quijas
follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement of Scott McAllister and Louis F. Quijas
February 28, 2012
Thank you, Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Higgins, and Members of
the committee. We appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the
Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) efforts to keep our Nation safe
from evolving threats through information-sharing activities with our
State and local partners.
Over the past 3 years, one of the Department's top priorities has
been to establish a domestic information-sharing capability that
facilitates our efforts to fully integrate State, local, Tribal, and
territorial (SLTT) officials into our terrorism prevention capacity.
DHS is working with the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal
Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and National Counterterrorism Center
(NCTC), as well as with our SLTT partners on four key priorities:
Improve production and dissemination of classified and
unclassified information regarding threats to the homeland;
Establish grass-roots analytic capabilities through the
development of a National network of State and major urban area
fusion centers so that National intelligence can be
incorporated into a local context;
Standardize how we train SLTT law enforcement to recognize
indicators of terrorism-related criminal activity and report
those suspicious activity reports (SARs) to Joint Terrorism
Task Forces (JTTFs) for investigation and fusion centers for
analysis; and
Increase community awareness and encourage the public to
report suspicious activity to law enforcement.
As part of these efforts, DHS, including the Office of Civil Rights
and Civil Liberties and Office of Privacy, works to ensure appropriate
civil liberty and privacy protections are integrated into all of our
information-sharing and terrorism prevention activities.
production and dissemination
The Department has developed tailored product lines to meet
the needs of our SLTT partners, and expanded our dissemination
to include the diverse range of homeland security stakeholders
(law enforcement, emergency management, public health, and
private sector). Specifically, I&A produces a variety of
timely, tailored, and actionable intelligence products for SLTT
partners, to include: Daily Intelligence Highlights (DIH), Roll
Call Releases (RCR), Homeland Security Notes (HSN), Homeland
Security Reference Aids (HSRA), Homeland Security Assessments
(HSA), Homeland Security Monitors (HSM) Intelligence
Notifications and Homeland Security State and Local
Intelligence Community of Interest (HS-SLIC) messages, and
Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) trend analysis. Additionally,
I&A coordinates the development of tearline reporting with the
larger intelligence community (IC) during times of imminent
threat to ensure that SLTT partners remain fully apprised of
the evolving threat environment in the Homeland. I&A also works
closely with the FBI on the development of Joint Information
Bulletins (JIB), both classified and unclassified, that are
disseminated to SLTT and law enforcement officials, which
provide situational awareness and information on potential
threats.
I&A uses feedback provided by State and local customers to
adjust its analytic and current intelligence products to better
meet their needs. As a result of feedback received over the
last 2 years, I&A initiated new products including the
Snapshot, which identifies tactics, techniques, and procedures
of an emerging event which may have Homeland implications, and
provides potential indicators and recommended preventive and
protective actions. Analysis of survey data provided by SLTT
partners on I&A products reveals that 98 percent of SLTT
customers rated the relevance of I&A products they reviewed as
Important to Critical. Likewise, 96 percent rated their
satisfaction with the usefulness, timeliness, and
responsiveness of I&A products as Somewhat to Very Satisfied.
The Department has increased its coordination and collaboration
with DOJ and the FBI through joint production and dissemination of
intelligence and information to our SLTT and law enforcement partners.
For example:
DHS and FBI provide joint Secure Video Teleconferences
(SVTC) to SLTT and law enforcement officials, as well as the
private sector to provide intelligence information regarding
emerging threats. Specifically, we provided joint SVTC to
stakeholders during the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 and leading up
to the 2011 holiday season;
The Department's National Terrorism Advisory System, or
NTAS, replaces the color-coded Homeland Security Advisory
System (HSAS). This new system more effectively communicates
information about terrorist threats by providing timely,
detailed information to SLTT and law enforcement partners.
fusion centers
As part of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission
Act of 2007, DHS was charged with leading the effort to support and
coordinate with a network of State or local-led information sharing and
analytic centers in States and major cities throughout the country.
Through I&A's State and Local Program Office (SLPO), DHS has included
these fusion centers in the intelligence cycle by building their
capabilities to receive, analyze, disseminate, and gather information
at the local level. I&A facilitates unified Federal support to fusion
centers that yields the highest possible degree of two-way information
sharing. This not only helps build a robust National intelligence
infrastructure, it also simultaneously enhances State and local law
enforcement capabilities. The result is an increasingly robust, dynamic
flow of information with the States that results in joint intelligence
products, reporting of information of intelligence value, and building
of an analytic and information-sharing capacity. DHS has made
considerable progress in building fusion centers' information-sharing
capabilities, including the following:
There are now 93 I&A intelligence personnel deployed in
support of fusion centers throughout the country. These
intelligence personnel coordinate with DHS Component
intelligence and law enforcement personnel who support fusion
centers in various capacities. For example, I&A Intelligence
Officers (IOs) coordinate with TSA field IOs to understand
threats to the transportation sector and collaborate on
intelligence products
Homeland Secure Data Network (HSDN) systems are deployed to
fusion centers to permit access to Secret information and
intelligence at the local level. I&A has developed and deployed
a collaboration tool on HSDN to connect analysts from across
the Homeland Security Enterprise to focus on counterterrorism-
related issues.
Through I&A-led training, non-Federal analysts at fusion
centers are rapidly increasing their analytic capacity and
producing products routinely exchanged throughout fusion
centers that fuse intelligence and information from the
intelligence community with local/regional context.
DHS has the first statutorily required privacy office of any
Federal agency, and the Department builds privacy and civil
rights and civil liberties protections into its operations,
policies, and programs. All fusion centers have appointed a
privacy officer and have a written privacy policy that conforms
to the requirements of the Information Sharing Environment
established under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act. In addition, State and local personnel
participate in regional workshops and on-site privacy and civil
liberties training.
Almost every process or system in the fusion centers is designed to
facilitate two-way information sharing. For example, I&A has deployed
reports officers who work with State and local law enforcement to
gather and report information of intelligence value to the Department
and the intelligence community that has not traditionally contributed
to intelligence community analysis. In fiscal year 2011, I&A reports
officers submitted 332 Intelligence Information Reports based on
information provided by State and local partners.
training
The Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative
(NSI), which is led by the Department of Justice, responds to the
mandate to establish a ``unified process for reporting, tracking, and
accessing [SARs]'' in a manner that rigorously protects the privacy and
civil liberties of Americans, as called for in the National Strategy
for Information Sharing. The NSI establishes standardized processes and
policies for gathering, documenting, processing, analyzing, and sharing
information about terrorism-related suspicious activities. The NSI
allows State, local, Tribal, territorial, and Federal law enforcement
organizations, as well as private sector entities, to share information
about suspicious activity that is potentially terrorism-related.
This initiative is training all law enforcement across the Nation
to recognize behaviors and indicators related to terrorism, crime, and
other threats; standardize how those observations are documented and
analyzed; and ensure the sharing of those reports with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation for further investigation. This training
emphasizes privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties considerations in
assessing and documenting observed suspicious activities. Beginning in
December 2010, the NSI has trained over 196,000 front-line officers,
with the goal that virtually all front-line law enforcement personnel
in the United States--hundreds of thousands of officers--will
eventually receive the training.
DHS has also worked closely with SLTT law enforcement and community
organizations to support the administration's countering violent
extremism (CVE) approach as outlined in Empowering Local Partners to
Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States. Likewise, the
administration's Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local
Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States (SIP) was
heavily informed by State and local law enforcement and underscores the
strength of community-based problem solving, local partnerships, and
community-oriented policing.
DHS, in partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department and the
National Consortium for Advanced Policing, is in the process of
developing a CVE training curriculum for State, local, and Tribal law
enforcement. This CVE curriculum was test-piloted in San Diego in
January 2012 and the Major Cities Chiefs Association has passed a
motion to implement this curriculum across the country once it is
finalized. The curriculum includes an analysis of the common behaviors
and indicators associated with violent extremism and guidance and best
practices for community partnerships, to include an understanding of
the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties considerations in this
arena. This curriculum is a key example of the Department's efforts to
partner with State and locals on countering violent extremism. The
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) is also currently
working to develop a CVE curriculum that will be integrated into its
Federal law enforcement training programs.
In addition to the Department's training efforts, DHS and FBI field
personnel, on a regular basis, provide briefings and workshops to State
and local jurisdictions to help them to prepare for, protect against,
and respond to coordinated terrorist attacks against multiple targets.
For example, DHS has worked closely with NCTC and FBI to present the
Joint Counterterrorism Awareness Workshop Series (JCTAWS) to cities
Nation-wide. This initiative is designed to improve the ability of
local jurisdictions to prepare for, protect against, and respond to
potential coordinated terrorist attacks against multiple targets. The
JCTAWS workshops, held in cities across the United States, include
Federal, State, and local participants from across the law enforcement,
emergency response, and private sector communities.
``if you see something, say something''
We continue to coordinate with the NSI on the rollout of the ``If
You See Something, Say SomethingTM'' public awareness
campaign. Originally used by the New York Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, DHS received permission to use the MTA-trademarked phrase
and to expand ``If You See Something, Say SomethingTM'' to a
Nation-wide effort to increase public awareness and encourage the
reporting of suspicious activity to local law enforcement authorities.
This campaign is being expanded in locations that are part of the NSI
in order to ensure appropriate training, safeguards, and reporting
mechanisms are in place prior to any launch. Engaging the public and
capturing SARs is increasingly important given the on-going threat of
homegrown violent extremists. In addition, DHS and the FBI have co-
branded briefing and educational materials provided to stakeholders and
have announced major partnerships with the State, local, and private
sector.
additional departmental information-sharing efforts
Other Departmental information-sharing initiatives include outreach
to elected and appointed officials including Governors, homeland
security advisors (HSA), mayors, and Tribal officials and State and
local law enforcement entities.
DHS's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (IGA) leads interaction
with elected and appointed officials and works closely with I&A and the
Office of State and Local Law Enforcement (OSLLE) to ensure they are
kept abreast of threat information. Interactions between HSAs and local
officials and I&A Intelligence Officers in the field is routine,
providing State leadership with up-to-date threat information on a
regular basis at multiple classification levels. DHS also has expanded
its work with Tribal governments and law enforcement entities across
the Nation. DHS has Tribal liaisons in every operational component to
work directly with Tribal communities. This continuous collaboration is
evidence of the interagency determination to ensure State leadership is
an integral part of the homeland security enterprise.
In addition, the DHS' OSLLE, working in a coordinated approach with
IGA, helps ensure the broadest possible reach to the Nation's law
enforcement community. The Office is staffed by a combination of
second-career law enforcement professionals and current DHS Component
personnel that are in law enforcement career series (GS-1800) who build
and maintain relationships with non-Federal law enforcement partners.
The day-to-day interactions between fusion centers and the non-
Federal law enforcement community vary throughout the Nation. In order
to address the diverse nature of these relationships, the OSLLE
utilizes its role as the DHS principal liaison with non-Federal law
enforcement partners to ensure that those law enforcement agencies that
are not integrated with a fusion center receive the same level of
information as their fusion center counterparts. The OSLLE works to
ensure that these law enforcement agencies receive not only threat and
response information, but also information regarding National and
Departmental initiatives and programs. To better serve our partners and
ensure that they receive the latest information on Department
activities, the OSLLE has formed an intra-agency group, the DHS
Component Law Enforcement Outreach Committee (CLEOC), comprised of DHS
personnel whose duties include outreach to our non-Federal law
enforcement partners.
Furthermore, the Office of Operations Coordination and Planning
(OPS) utilize the expertise and viewpoint of active law enforcement in
its mission to maintain situational awareness. DHS OPS has sworn law
enforcement personnel from across the Nation within the National
Operations Center (NOC) who are included at every level of the watch
functions, including reviewing the information sent from OPS to its
stakeholders and partners. In particular, the law enforcement personnel
in the NOC are active participants in the dissemination of products
from I&A's Intelligence Watch, which is co-located with OPS in the NOC.
conclusion
While America is stronger and more resilient as a result of these
efforts to strengthen the Homeland Security Enterprise, threats from
terrorism persist and continue to evolve. Today's threats do not come
from any one individual or group. They may originate in distant lands
or local neighborhoods. They may be as simple as a homemade bomb or as
sophisticated as a biological threat or coordinated cyber attack.
The Federal Government realizes that State, local, Tribal, and
territorial law enforcement, as well as citizens, businesses, and
communities are on the front lines of detection and prevention.
Protecting the Nation is a shared responsibility and everyone can
contribute by staying informed and aware of the threats the Nation
faces.
The Federal Government benefits from a robust information-sharing
infrastructure with its SLTT partners. SLTT partners similarly benefit
from the collaborative environment established within the fusion
centers through their analysis of the National threat picture and the
provision of products that are developed and tailored using local
context to support the implementation of information-driven community-
based solutions by local officials. SLTT partners also benefit from the
National Network of Fusion Centers' support of the implementation of
the NSI and fusion center participation in the ``If You See Something,
Say SomethingTM'' public awareness campaign. These important
initiatives, combined with other coordinated outreach efforts of the
Department, underscore the concept that homeland security begins with
hometown security, where an alert public plays a critical role in
keeping our Nation safe.
DHS thanks this subcommittee for your continued support of our
efforts, and your invaluable guidance and oversight as we continue to
work to create a stronger and safer country. We look forward to any
questions you may have.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. McAllister.
Now, Mr. Quijas, for your testimony, please.
STATEMENT OF LOUIS QUIJAS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, OFFICE FOR
STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT, DEPARMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Quijas. Good morning, Mr. Meehan, Ranking Member
Higgins, and Members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the
opportunity to testify before you today on the Department of
Homeland Security's efforts regarding information sharing with
our State, local, and Tribal law enforcement partners.
As mentioned at the beginning of this hearing, I have had
the pleasure and honor of serving 36 years in Federal and local
law enforcement. It is this experience that I draw on in my
current position as assistant secretary of the Office for State
and Local Law Enforcement.
In response to the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission,
Congress created my office and directed that the assistant
secretary lead the coordination of the Department-wide policy
relating to State, local, and Tribal law enforcement's role in
preventing acts of terrorism and to serve as a liaison between
law enforcement agencies across the country and the Department.
As the Department's principal liaison with our law
enforcement partners, my office is uniquely positioned to
assist other DHS components connect with this very important
customer base. That unique relationship exemplifies the need
for a strong, independent office with a direct tie to the
Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security. By moving forward
with our plans to move my office as a direct report to the
Secretary in fiscal year 2012, we will be better-positioned and
aligned with the organizational structure of existing outreach
and offices within the Department. It will also improve our
ability to provide the Secretary with situational awareness and
real-time information on issues, concerns, and requirements of
our law enforcement partners.
The realignment will improve the office's visibility,
traction, and standing within the Department, allowing us to
better serve the 800,000 State, local, and Tribal law
enforcement customers, the 18,000 agencies they represent, and
the hundreds of organizations and associations that champion
their cause.
One of the Department's top priorities has been to
establish a domestic information-sharing capability that
facilitates our efforts to fully integrate our law enforcement
partners and to the Department's terrorism prevention capacity.
In coordination with the Office of Intelligence and Analysis,
my office utilizes its outreach capabilities to help facilitate
information sharing with our mutual customers.
To better serve our partners and to ensure that they
receive the latest information on Departmental activities and
initiatives, my office formed the DHS Component Law Enforcement
Outreach Group, an interagency coordination body. This group is
comprised of members from across the Department that have a
nexus of responsibility for outreach to our law enforcement
partners.
My office is committed to proactively identify and then
responding to challenges facing the law enforcement community.
For example, in the recent economic--current economic downturn,
law enforcement agencies are finding it difficult to maintain
routine services and incident response. As a former police
chief, I know first-hand that training is usually the first
casualty of budget cuts.
In an effort to assist our partners in identifying options
to meet their current and future training requirements, my
office has a range for the leadership of the major law
enforcement associations to visit and tour the DHS Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center, or FLETC, in Glynco, Georgia. This
visit will allow Connie Patrick, the director of FLETC, and her
team to brief the attendees on the resources, capabilities, and
training programs this state-of-the-art training facility has
to offer. The visit will also provide the FLETC team an
opportunity to help identify training efficiencies and areas
for future collaboration.
The Federal Government benefits from a robust information-
sharing infrastructure with State, local, and Tribal law
enforcement communities. Conversely, our partners benefit from
having my office as their advocate and voice within DHS to help
ensure that their issues, concerns, and challenges are
understood and given full consideration during the budget,
grant, and policy development processes. I believe that was the
intent of Congress when it created my office and named it the
Office for State and Local Law Enforcement.
As an active police chief on the morning of September 11,
2001, and having had the unique experience of being a part of
the FBI's and DHS's outreach efforts to the law enforcement
community post-9/11, I can say without hesitation that the
level of cooperation and information sharing with these very
valuable partners has never been better.
It also reflects, as Scott said earlier, our belief that
homeland security truly begins with hometown security. On
behalf of the Secretary, I would like to thank this
subcommittee for its support as we continue to work together to
create a safe, secure, and resilient Nation.
I look forward to any questions you may have, and thank
you.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Quijas.
I would like to recognize now Assistant Director Velez-
Villar for your testimony, sir.
STATEMENT OF ERIC VELEZ-VILLAR, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. Velez-Villar. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Higgins, and Members of the committee.
I am Special Agent Eric Velez, and I am the assistant
director for the FBI's Directorate of Intelligence. I have
submitted a written statement for the record to the committee,
so I will keep my comments brief, and I look forward to
answering any questions you may have.
First, I would like to start off by saying that it is an
honor to be able to speak before such a distinguished
committee. On behalf of Director Mueller, I would like to thank
you for the opportunity.
The FBI recognizes that with evolving National security
threats, it is extremely important that we adapt and position
ourselves to counter such threats before they do harm. We must
do this, always keeping in mind the rights and civil liberties
of our citizens. The most effective tool we have at our
disposal is each other. By working collaboratively and sharing
what we know, together we become a formidable force to our
enemies.
As threats are increasingly conceived and carried out
entirely within our borders, our reliance upon our State,
local, and Tribal partners has never been more critical. It is
almost certain that before an FBI agent comes face-to-face with
a threat actor, a State, local or Tribal police officer or
deputy will most likely encounter them first. They must know
what we know in order to do their jobs.
The fusion centers have become a strong and committed
partner of ours. Our special agents in charge, or SACs, serve
on the various governance boards or executive committees. We
have assigned analysts and agents to the majority of the
centers and are committed to doing everything we can to help
them succeed.
The way we see it, anyone committed to protecting our
communities is a partner of ours. As a lead agency for domestic
intelligence, we welcome everyone willing to assist to be part
of the team. We see these centers as a force multiplier. They
assist our field intelligence groups, or FIGs, in communicating
our intelligence to our State, local, and Tribal partners. They
keep their eyes open for any indicators of potential threats
and relay that information to our Joint Terrorism Task Forces,
or JTTFs. They assist in our intelligence analysis by adding a
State and local context to that analysis.
Some of the centers are collocated with our FBI field
office, and we find it to be an optimal operating environment,
which allows for seamless integration and collaboration.
In summary, I would just like to say that information
sharing and our partnership with State, local, Tribal agencies
is nothing new to the FBI. We have been doing it since the
beginning of our organization. It is engrained in the way we do
business.
9/11 was a stark reminder of how important it is for us to
share information. We have worked very hard to find more
effective and efficient ways to share intelligence with our
partners. I look forward to answering any questions you may
have, and thank you for the opportunity.
[The statement of Mr. Velez-Villar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Eric Velez-Villar
February 28, 2012
Good morning, Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Speier, and Members
of the subcommittee. It is my privilege and pleasure to address you
today as the Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's Directorate of Intelligence, and to demonstrate our
organization's commitment to the timely sharing of intelligence and
information related to United States National security.
The constantly-evolving National security threat requires an
adaptable information-sharing strategy. In the period immediately
following 9/11, the FBI focused on threats originating outside the
United States, but we now also must direct our resources to address the
threat from individuals residing in our country who demonstrate violent
extremist actions on behalf of either a foreign-based or domestic
ideology. The FBI will continue to provide relevance and context on
foreign threat information; however, we also recognize that the violent
extremism threat may be first identified within our communities by
State, local, or Tribal law enforcement. As a result, we have taken
numerous proactive steps in the past year to develop a more robust
information-sharing capacity with all Federal, State, local, and Tribal
law enforcement partners.
Given the diverse threats we face, it is essential that law
enforcement entities work together, making our partnerships with all
levels of law enforcement that much more invaluable. As the lead agency
for domestic intelligence collection, as outlined in Executive Order
12333, the FBI must ensure that we maintain responsibility for all
investigative activity involving terrorist threats while also sharing
as much information as possible with our partners. We routinely
disseminate raw and finished intelligence products to our partners to
help us achieve this goal, and we focus on three critical tools to
facilitate information sharing with our partners: Fusion centers, the
FBI's Field Intelligence Groups (``FIGs''), and the FBI's Joint
Terrorism Task Forces (``JTTFs'').
As the analytical counterpart to the fusion centers--sharing a
similar mission of gathering, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence
information--FIGs are the focal point for sharing information with
fusion centers. FIGs ensure all terrorism-related information is passed
to the FBI's JTTFs. Unlike fusion centers and FIGs, JTTFs conduct
operations and are focused exclusively on terrorism, with the
responsibility for operations against and investigations of terrorist
acts and terrorist threats inside the United States as well as related
intelligence collection activities inside the United States.
The FBI has implemented an engagement strategy to enhance our
relationship with fusion centers and has demonstrated its commitment to
partnering with other agencies, specifically, the Department of
Homeland Security (``DHS''), on fusion center initiatives in several
key ways. To foster better coordination and integration of intelligence
dissemination, the FBI has directly supported fusion centers by
assigning approximately 96 FBI personnel to at least 55 of the 77
fusion centers on a full-time or part-time basis. Of the more than 100
JTTFs operating throughout the country--comprising more than 4,000 task
force members from more than 650 Federal, State, and local agencies--16
are collocated with fusion centers, providing even greater coordination
and information sharing and enabling FBI and fusion center personnel to
better understand each other's roles and responsibilities. All
participants in fusion centers and JTTFs act as equal partners:
Federal, State, local, and Tribal JTTF participants can access all
threat information relevant to their area of responsibility, and the
JTTFs share specific threat information concerning operations and
investigations with relevant State and local entities.
Fusion centers maximize our ability to detect, prevent,
investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity. They
assist the FBI by providing information made available by the
combination of knowledge, expertise, and information within local law
enforcement and homeland security agencies operating throughout the
Nation, and our participation allows us to provide a National
perspective on regional threats and trends so we can better inform
decision makers at all levels. The exchange of intelligence that takes
place in fusion centers aids other intelligence and law enforcement
organizations--including the JTTFs--in their investigative operations
and serves as a critical tool for collaboration at all levels.
With the DHS, the FBI co-chairs the Fusion Center Sub-Committee of
the Information Sharing and Access Interagency Policy Committee, a
group that coordinates Federal support to fusion centers by providing
guidance and standards to support interconnectivity, thereby ensuring
information sharing among fusion centers and all levels of government.
Moreover, the FBI recently hosted a 2-day northeast regional meeting of
the fusion center directors, and we invited all of the directors to
participate on their respective JTTF Executive Boards to ensure more
effective coordination. We have also requested that the Special Agents
in Charge of each FBI field office participate on their respective
Fusion Center Advisory Board.
In addition to its collaboration with Federal, State, local, and
Tribal law enforcement through its fusion center initiatives, the FBI
works with its law enforcement partners in many other areas. We have
partnered with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, DHS,
and other agencies to establish a unified approach to addressing the
critical information needs of Federal, State, local, and Tribal law
enforcement. Concurrence among senior interagency leaders has resulted
in an unprecedented commitment to unified messaging to the public
regarding the proper protocols for reporting suspicious activity. This
message encourages agencies at all levels of Government to encourage
the use of the ``If You See Something Say SomethingTM''
campaign to raise public awareness of behavioral indicators of
terrorism, and to emphasize the importance of reporting suspicious
activities to proper law enforcement authorities, which will forward
suspicious activity reports to fusion centers and the FBI's JTTFs for
follow-up and de-confliction.
Training materials for law enforcement agencies in several States
will be rolled out in the coming weeks and months to ensure that line
officers understand how to identify the suspicious behaviors associated
with pre-incident terrorism activities, how to document and report
suspicious activity, and how to ensure the protection of privacy and
civil liberties when documenting information. This messaging will be
replicated Nation-wide at all levels of government to educate the
public and raise awareness.
Further, the FBI and its partner agencies have renewed their
commitment to ensuring all information--whether it is reported to a
fusion center or to a JTTF--is shared with those who need to know. Over
the past few months, the FBI has worked closely with the Nationwide
Suspicious Activity Reporting (``SAR'') Initiative's Program Management
Office to implement technical and business processes that enable two
systems--the FBI's eGuardian system and the Information Sharing
Environment's Shared Space systems--to share SARs more quickly and
efficiently. While they continue to work to improve this
synchronization, as of December 1, 2011, SARs and other information are
now pushed from one system to the other more effectively. This has
ensured that all SARs entered into Shared Space are shared with
eGuardian. The final goal in linking the two systems is to ensure that
SARs will automatically pass between them without duplicating users'
efforts and without changing the Shared Space system, resulting in more
seamless sharing of information between fusion centers, FIGs, and
JTTFs.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I would be happy
to answer any of your questions.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Velez.
Now we turn to the last member of the panel to present
testimony, Ms. Bryant.
STATEMENT OF MAURITA J. BRYANT, ASSISTANT CHIEF, PITTSBURGH
BUREAU OF POLICE
Chief Bryant. Good morning, Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member
Higgins, and Members of the subcommittee and distinguished
panelists.
As the first national vice president of the National
Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, NOBLE, I am
here today on behalf of NOBLE, and I thank you for the
opportunity to allow me to speak on issues related to the
effectiveness of fusion center operations.
Overall, fusion centers are moving in the right direction,
but there are still some disconnects. In today's climate of
shrinking budgets, manpower shortages, global networks
supporting foreign and domestic terrorism, organization and
drug trafficking, all levels of local, State, and Federal law
enforcement realize we must work together and enter into the
information-sharing process.
Most important to law enforcement at all levels is the
critical operational capabilities that primary and recognized
fusion centers provide, such as the ability to receive
classified and unclassified information from Federal partners,
the ability to assess, analyze, and access the implications of
local threat information, the ability to disseminate threat
information to other local, State, Tribal, and territorial law
enforcement agencies and private-sector entities, the ability
to gather and share locally-generated information.
Continued funding to fusion centers will permit these
entities to advance beyond the policy development associated
with the critical operating capabilities. This will allow
centers to enter into a sound implementation phase with
business practices consistent throughout the National network
of fusion centers. Some fusion centers across the Nation in
cities such as Tennessee, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and
Arizona, to name a few, are more operational than others and
can be modeled for their performance.
At the current time, the Pittsburgh Region Fusion Center
has not been stood up for its full operational capacity. It
does routinely produce and disseminate to all sectors an open-
source document that is well-received by the appropriate
personnel. The current and projected projects of the All
Hazards Fusion Center, per Federal guidance, is specifically
designed to expand beyond the terrorism nexus.
Some of the systems in place, such as National Security
Institute, NSI, and the FBI's eGuardian are designed to
generate day-to-day information that is--that has a possible
nexus to terrorism, which is sometimes routed in the
appropriate law enforcement agency.
This can be a challenge, depending upon the geographical
location, personalities, and existing cultural barriers, such
as sharing information among public safety disciplines.
Pittsburgh is in the early stages of their fusion's effort and
project that it can have a substantial impact based on
experience to date with a limited deployment.
The biggest issue currently is funding in the out-years.
Recently, the Pittsburgh Urban Area Securities Initiative has
been removed from the list of urban areas that will be funded
in the 2012 budget. Without an active and funded All Hazards
Fusion Center, Pittsburgh will not be able to fully understand
the threat, let alone react to prevent, protect, defend, deter,
and respond to acts of terrorism.
One of the key capabilities of a fusion center is to have
access to intelligence and threat information. In order to
effectively support fusion center priorities, the process for
direct fusion center funding must be explored.
Pittsburgh has recently had its threat profile downgraded
from 27th in the Nation to 33rd, which has cut the funding.
Pittsburgh maintains that it cannot develop a full
understanding of the threat without an All Hazards Fusion
Center, which leaves them in a catch-22 situation.
I will close now and then leave it open for questions.
[The statement of Ms. Bryant follows:]
Prepared Statement of Maurita J. Bryant
February 28, 2012
Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Higgins, Ranking and Members of the
committee: I am Maurita J. Bryant, first national vice president of the
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify and submit testimony for the record
regarding intelligence sharing and the importance of information
gathered in fusion centers to stop and prevent crime. The National
Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, better known as
NOBLE, was founded in September 1976, during a 3-day symposium to
address crime in urban low-income areas. The symposium was co-sponsored
by the Police Foundation and the Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration (LEAA). The mission of NOBLE is to ensure equity in the
administration of justice in the provision of public service to all
communities, and to serve as the conscience of law enforcement by being
committed to justice by action. NOBLE strives to be recognized as a
highly competent, public service organization that is at the forefront
of providing solutions to law enforcement issues and concerns, as well
as to the ever-changing needs of our communities.
As the first national vice president, I am here representing a
membership body of over 2,500 predominantly African American law
enforcement executives from six regions across the United States and
abroad. NOBLE has been a leading National voice on hate crimes,
community policing, racial and religious tolerance, and law enforcement
accreditation standards as a founding association of the Commission on
Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), along with
International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Police Executive
Research Forum (PERF), and the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA).
As you are aware since 2001, all 50 States and some local
governments have established fusion centers where homeland security,
terrorism, and other intelligence information are shared. It should be
noted that while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and
Department of Justice (DOJ) have been engaged in addressing the
challenges fusion center officials have identified, we are of the
opinion that overall fusion centers are moving in the right direction
but there are some disconnects. In today's climate of shrinking
budgets, manpower shortages, global networks supporting foreign and
domestic terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking; all levels of
local, State, and Federal law enforcement realize we must enter into
the information-sharing process. Fusion Centers provide the avenue for
the exchange of information. While fusion centers initially focused
their efforts on terrorism-centric matters, we are pleased that they
have taken on an ``all hazards'' approach and continuous development of
these capabilities is important. Fusion centers can provide an ideal
venue and an effective and efficient way to exchange information and
intelligence to improve the ability to fight crime and terrorism and to
respond to disasters. State and major urban area fusion centers are
owned and operated by State and local entities. The Federal Government
recognizes these designations and has a shared responsibility with
State and local agencies to support the National network of fusion
centers. Law enforcement at all levels of government has grown to
utilize fusion centers to provide expertise and situational awareness
to inform decision-making for the allocation of valuable resources.
Approximately 18 months ago DHS came out with a self-assessment process
and later developed a more structured process that involved internal
and external fusion center partners. Most important to law enforcement
at all levels is the critical operational capabilities that primary and
recognized fusion centers provide, such as:
Ability to receive classified and unclassified information
from Federal partners.
Ability to access, analyze, and assess the implications of
local threat information.
Ability to disseminate threat information to other local,
State, Tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies and
private-sector entities.
Ability to gather and share locally generated information.
Continued funding to fusion centers will permit these entities to
advance beyond the policy development associated with the critical
operating capabilities. This will allow them to enter into a sound
implementation phase with business practices consistent throughout the
National network of fusion centers. Some fusion centers across the
Nation in cities such as Tennessee, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and
Arizona, to name a few, are more operational than others and can be
modeled for their performance. At the current time the Pittsburgh
Region Fusion Center has not been stood up to its full operational
capacity. It does routinely produce and disseminate to all Sectors an
open-source document that is well-received by the appropriate
personnel. The current and projected projects of the All Hazards Fusion
Center per Federal Guidance, is specifically designed to expand beyond
the terrorism nexus. Some of the systems in place such as, NSI and the
FBI's eGuardian, are designed to generate ``day-to-day'' information
that has a possible nexus to terrorism, which is sometimes routed to
the appropriate Law Enforcement Agency. This can be a challenge
depending upon the geographical location, personalities and existing
cultural barriers; such as sharing information among public safety
disciplines. Pittsburgh is in the early stages of their Fusion effort
and project that it can have a substantial impact based on experience
to date with a limited deployment. The biggest issue currently is
funding in the out-years. Recently the Pittsburgh UASI has been removed
from the list of Urban Areas that will be funded in the 2012 budget.
Without an active and funded ``All Hazards Fusion Center'' Pittsburgh
will not be able to fully understand the threat, let alone react to
prevent, protect, defend, deter, and respond to acts of terrorism.
One of the key capabilities of a fusion center is access to
intelligence and threat information. In order to effectively support
fusion center priorities the process for direct fusion center funding
must be explored. Pittsburgh has recently had its threat profile
downgraded from 27th in the Nation to 33rd which has cut the funding.
Pittsburgh maintains that it cannot develop a full understanding of the
threat without an All Hazards Fusion Center, which leaves them in a
``catch-22'' situation. Another issue that has impacted the success of
those working hard to develop fusion center capabilities is the Federal
grant approval process which oftentimes causes significant delays in
the roll-out. However, DHS has recently removed a number of the
impediments, which will make it easier to ``fast track'' fusion centers
and other projects. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, it will not have the
funding after 2011 dollars are exhausted. In response to the question,
does DHS provide sufficient guidance and structure to State and local
responders and their missions? Depending upon who is asked the
question, the response would be at times there is far too much guidance
and structure. In places where fusion centers are more mature they can
pretty much go on auto pilot with little or no guidance because they
have processes and relationships in place. Fusion centers that are less
mature need more structure and guidance. For some that has been the on-
going issue in moving Fusion and other Homeland Security projects
forward within acceptable time frames based upon the fact that the
priorities of the fusion center and the State and local environment are
not always consistent with the priorities promulgated by DHS.
When asked is there anything more that the Federal Government
should be doing in order to make this intelligence-sharing process more
efficient and reliable? A recommendation would be to put in a process
to qualify larger numbers of people to ensure better dissemination of
information. The disconnect is that there are not many people in local
or State law enforcement who have secret, not alone top secret
clearances, so the classified information is not disseminated. Although
clearances play a major role, we recognize this issue is under
revision. Information sharing must be a two-way street, local level
information is not always communicated because personnel may not think
it is worth communicating on a National level. This is where education
and awareness must continue at the State and local level and within the
fusion center. Any information-sharing process must better determine
access and minimize exclusivity--there still remains a tendency to
hoard knowledge. It will be a waste of time for everyone if the
information (beyond data) available is not being shared.
Information sharing is vital in law enforcement and it is important
that appropriate intelligence coupled with analysis is continually
provided if we are to achieve success in this area. DHS has been
somewhat effective in getting past the old model of information
``silos'' that has impaired the ability of local officials to react to
the ever-changing threat landscape. The capabilities of the various
fusion centers must continually be evaluated on a holistic basis to
ensure that across the country information is provided to State and
local partners so that all gaps in identifying emerging threats to our
communities are closed. As fusion centers receive intelligence that is
pertinent, it is critical for that information to be shared in an
expeditious manner. When information is shared it should be one message
without circular reporting. Information overload is a casualty that
comes from receiving the same information coming from multiple sources.
It should also be recognized that large States such as Texas,
California, Virginia, and Florida with multiple fusion centers allow
for a greater population base to be served. One fusion center per State
does not always answer the needs for the entire State. In looking
towards the future, it is anticipated that collaboration efforts
between State and local authorities and Federal agencies will progress
and jurisdictional boundaries will become less significant over time.
Information must be as highly mobile as the population in order to
solve crime and thwart terrorism. While the existence of fusion centers
has allowed information sharing to increase in a post-9/11 environment
there is still a tremendous amount of ground to be covered if we are to
fully realize a positive information-sharing environment at all levels
of government.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Ms. Bryant. Thanks to each of the
members of the panel, again, as I said, for your written
testimony, but also for summarizing the essenc of your key
points in your verbal testimony.
So, again, we will allow each of the committee Members the
5 minutes allotted to each of us to begin our questioning. I
will now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
Let me begin by just a couple of observations and ask the
panel to be responsive, because I think you spelled out well
sort of the boundaries of where we were. First, we watched in
the course of 10 years--and this is the essence of what I am
asking--we have been 10 years at it. Where are we? What are we
doing right?
We have seen a transformation, accurately identified by Mr.
McAllister, in which we now are looking beyond the threat from
overseas to the simultaneous reality, in light of what we have
seen with Hezbollah and others and, you know, acting out
potentially in Washington, DC, and the concomitant reality of
homegrown terrorism, that we have got joint issues that we need
to be looking at, at the same time. It is actually increased
the challenge before us.
We have on the National level very sophisticated
operations, Mr. Velez, throughout the FBI in every field
office, in which we have stood up Joint Terrorism Task Forces,
looking in a very disciplined way towards the issue of
terrorism. We have down on the local level--as Mr. Bryant
pointed out--fusion centers which are largely State- and local-
oriented.
We have got a lot of consistency, but a lot of
inconsistency, and who remembers how they are organized, how
they are overseen, and the role that they play in interaction.
That may be a good thing, based on local needs and challenges,
but in this context, where we have got this changing nature of
the threat and we are organized in different ways, both
Federally and locally, is it working? What is going right? What
is going wrong with regard to fusion centers? What should we be
doing a better job on? May I just ask the panel to respond to
those observations and give me your gut sense as to what we
ought to be doing better?
Mr. McAllister. Chairman Meehan, if I could address that,
first of all, let me describe the National network of fusion
centers. Each Governor is requested to identify a primary
fusion center for his or her State. In addition to that, there
are recognized fusion centers. So right now, we have a core
capability throughout the majority of State and territories in
the United States as those primary touch points between the
Federal Government with threat information coming down to a
State fusion center, and that State fusion center applying a
localized context to that threat information----
Mr. Meehan. How does it work with the situation in which--
you coming from the southeast, you appreciate--Philadelphia has
got a fusion center. Ms. Bryant is in Pittsburgh. There is a
huge difference geographically with Pittsburgh and
Philadelphia. Is Pittsburgh tied in? Or are there two separate
fusion centers?
Mr. McAllister. Well, I can describe my experience in
Florida. In Florida, as the deputy homeland security adviser,
we had our primary State fusion center located in Tallahassee,
designated by the Governor. Also, there were two other
recognized fusion centers that sat in urban areas, one in
Orlando and one in the Miami area.
What is important to note is that these are owned and
operated by local entities. They are not owned by the Federal
Government. In turn, it is incumbent upon that State entity to
describe an overarching architecture of how information and
intelligence will be shared within that State. So for my
personal experience, we developed a program in order for
information and threat to come down from the Federal Government
to the State, the State out to our other recognized fusion
centers and other nodes within that State, and then the reverse
flow.
Mr. Meehan. Ms. Bryant, you are from Pittsburgh. How does
that work, from your perspective, right now?
Chief Bryant. Well----
Mr. Meehan. Would you push your button so that we can hear
you?
Chief Bryant. As I stated earlier, our fusion center is not
fully operational. We have the disconnect because--if I was to
ask the director of our emergency management services, he would
say that the disconnect is the bureaucracy and the audits, and
he would give a whole lot of information.
Mr. Meehan. Federal audits? State audits? Local audits? Who
is doing that?
Chief Bryant. State and Federal audits. It has been a 3-
year process for Pittsburgh, but it still hasn't gotten off the
ground. Then it is the dilemma of, who is going to be in
charge? Is it going to be emergency management? Or is it going
to be law enforcement? So we have a lot of issues----
Mr. Meehan. Is this because you are going into all-hazards?
Chief Bryant. Yes, because it is all-hazards. For our area,
we do need all-hazards.
Mr. Meehan. Okay. Well, that is an issue worth--Mr. Velez
or Mr. Quijas, if you have anything to add, my time has passed,
but if you have something quickly to add to either the general
question or the specific, I would be delighted to hear it.
Mr. Quijas. I think the critical piece here that as a
State, we focused on is the involvement of State and locals in
the fusion centers. Prior to September 11, you would not have
seen that. The level of engagement, the level of involvement
and the management at the local level, as Scott said, those are
locally managed, which I think says a lot about where we have
come from September 11 and the engagement of our State and
local partners in basically driving these initiatives. So I
think there has been a lot of progress in that, and I think the
fusion centers show that.
Mr. Meehan. My challenge is one State directing the local
partnership, a State like Pennsylvania, not unlike many others,
with two specific urban centers. There may be more. You know,
how do we make it work in a situation like that?
Let me just--Mr. Velez, do you have any comment before I
turn it over to Mr. Higgins for--okay, well, thank you so much.
At this point in time, let me recognize the Ranking Member,
Mr. Higgins, for his questions. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate very
much the characterization of the disjointed way that security
issues were dealt with prior to 9/11.
There is a book written by Lawrence Wright called ``The
Looming Tower.'' The subtitle is ``From Al Qaida to 9/11.'' In
it, there is a passage where he recounts that an FBI agent,
when the second plane hit the tower, physically got sick,
because he realized that between the FBI, the CIA, and local
law enforcement agencies, they had the intelligence to
potentially thwart that attack.
But because these barriers existed between the Federal law
enforcement agencies, that intelligence wasn't shared freely,
and thus it was of no use relative to that situation. So I
appreciate very much, you know, reassuring us that things have
changed profoundly since, but we can never become complacent.
You have to be diligent.
The Chairman had mentioned--and we have had previous
testimony in this committee--about the potential threat of
Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere, including North America.
Hezbollah is a terrorist organization committed to violent
jihad. They act as a proxy for Syria, for Venezuela, and for
Iran. They have a presence in the 20-country region of Latin
America, and they also have a presence in 15 American cities
and four major cities in Canada.
This is a threat that we have been told we shouldn't be too
worried about it, because their activities, Hezbollah, in North
America is limited to fundraising activity. Well, to me, that
is cold comfort. When you look at the effectiveness of the
fusion centers, are they well-positioned, some 72 of them
throughout the Nation, are they well-positioned to deal with
not only the existing threats, but prospective threats, as
well, from organizations like Hezbollah that act as a--as I
said, a proxy for people that want to harm us?
So I ask that generally to the panel.
Mr. McAllister. If I may, first of all, we are positioned
in order to address that. It is a complementary, rather than
competitive type of environment. Working jointly with the FBI,
Department of Homeland Security I&A has developed a joint
information bulletin that is classified, but has been provided
to our key stakeholders throughout the State and local
environment, and working together with the FBI, it is a prime
example of being able to communicate that potential threat.
But the concept is, is in order to provide those key
leaders out there the ability to make informed decisions based
on that threat in the localized context to their area of
responsibility in order to make informed decisions on
deployment of their resources in order to mitigate that threat.
So that process is in place, and it is working well.
Chief Bryant. One of the problems that State and local law
enforcement has is that there are not many law enforcement
officers at that level that have secret, not alone top secret
clearance to receive the information. We work very well with
our Federal partners, but in the fusion center, if there is not
an FBI analyst to decipher and disseminate the information, it
doesn't always come all the way down.
Another disconnect with that two-way information-sharing is
the officers who work on the street who are many times the
first who would encounter a threat don't always realize the
importance of pushing the information up. So there needs to
additional education and awareness initiatives to ensure that
more officers are sent to where they can receive the proper
clearances and that the patrol officer on the street or the
beat officer on the street knows what information is key to be
pushed upward to our National levels.
Mr. Velez-Villar. Yes, I would just like to point out, as
well, the FBI uses a variety of mechanisms in order to ensure
that not only the fusion centers, but all our State and local
partners are positioned as well as they can be. Mr. McAllister
mentioned the joint intelligence bulletins, but one of the most
effective ways of doing this is through our Joint Terrorism
Task Force. Obviously, any investigation regarding Hezbollah
would be operated by the JTTF. We have Joint Terrorism Task
Force executive boards in which we bring in the membership of
these boards, which make up chiefs of police, homeland security
advisers, and we brief them on on-going efforts on these
threats, and we brief them in a classified environment, if need
be, but we share that directly face-to-face with them.
Mr. McAllister. Just to add to that, just to give you a
context of how many State and local law enforcement and other
first responders have security clearances, there are
approximately 4,000 State and local first responders that have
been provided secret-level clearances, if not higher.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Higgins.
The Chairman now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri,
Mr. Long.
Mr. Long. Thank you. I want to thank you all for being here
today, No. 1.
You don't need to turn around and look, but there are a
couple of pictures on the wall behind you all that had gone
missing from this committee room for a few years, and thanks to
Chairman King, they have been returned as a reminder, one, of
the Twin Towers engulfed in smoke and flames. The other one is
two searchlights going up at nighttime from where the Twin
Towers used to stand.
With that, in our memory, I think you all aware that there
was a CIA watch-listed individual that was pulled over by a
Maryland State trooper 2 days before that event, and he was
also one of the hijackers. Due to a lack of information
sharing, we were unable to stop him or do anything that might
have prevented the occurrence on 9/11.
So, Mr. Quijas, I would like to ask you, are we doing all
that we can in the area of information sharing among all law
enforcement agencies in this country? If not, what are the top
three areas that need to be addressed, in your opinion?
Mr. Quijas. Thank you, sir. You know, again, I was a
sitting chief on the morning of September 11, and tragically,
as the events were unfolding in New York, I had two FBI agents
that were sitting in my office briefing me, as we held the
furniture market every year in North Carolina in High Point. I
went from that period of really having to pull information out
of our Federal partners to now we basically have went to the
other end. In my travels, talking to the major city chiefs, the
National Sheriffs' Association, IECP members, in some cases, I
hear, ``We are getting too much information. Is there a way
that we can vet out that information so when we get it, it is
more accurate and actionable?'' That is what they want.
So that State trooper that you talked about that pulled
that car over, I can almost guarantee you today that that
officer through either the JTTF or fusion centers or one of the
other mechanisms out there sharing information would more than
likely have that information.
I have to agree with what the chief said. I think sometimes
there is a little confusion about, you know, how much
information people get, how it gets out to them, and I think
the challenge for us in the future is making sure that we don't
overwhelm our State and local partners, because at the end of
the day they are still keeping our homeland secure. They are
answering 9-1-1 calls. They are responding to burglaries. They
are doing all the local stuff. Plus, we have also asked them to
be on the front lines of keeping our country safe.
So I think in reality we have to be at the Federal level
more sensitive to--instead of just pushing more information
out, is that information timely? Is it actionable? So our State
and local partners can take action on that, help keeping our
communities safe, and as we all know, eventually keeps our
homeland safe.
Mr. Long. Okay. Ms. Bryant, you were nodding your head to
that ``too much information.'' Could you elaborate?
Chief Bryant. Yes. Information overload is a casualty. It
comes from receiving information from multiple sources. If you
continue to receive it, you tend to discard it, that it is not
important, because it is just too much. Sometimes we get the
same information two and three times just from different
sources, so if that could be vetted some sort of way so that
the message gets out, but it is not circular reporting.
Mr. Long. But are you able to get the critical information
that you do need in a timely fashion? Do you feel between
agencies information sharing?
Chief Bryant. I think it is an on-going process----
Mr. Long. There are no more turf battles?
Chief Bryant. It is an on-going battle, but it is getting
better. It really is getting better.
Mr. Long. Okay.
Chief Bryant. We are talking to one another, not talking at
one another.
Mr. Long. Next question is also for you, Ms. Bryant. I hail
from the fastest-growing Congressional in Missouri. The
Springfield, Branson, Joplin area of southwest Missouri grew
the fastest over the last 10 years of any area in the State. My
question was going to be: What could I tell my local law
enforcement agencies who need a fusion center what steps they
could take or what they need to do in that regard? But after
your earlier testimony, where you said you all have been 3
years trying to get a fusion center, I guess I would ask if you
could perhaps point out some pitfalls or things to be wary of
or how--if they could go forward without falling into a 3-year
morass like you all have.
Chief Bryant. I think, first, your law enforcement leaders
should visit some of the fusion centers around the country that
are operational and that are working together. First, before
they even start the planning phase, they need to build the
relationship with the Federal, State, and local
representatives.
If you don't have a relationship, you are going to have a
hard way to go. Once that relationship is formed, you have to
figure out, well, who is going to take the lead on the fusion
center and what type of fusion center we want to have. Those
are two crucial things that have to be done, and when those
decisions are made, then it is just a matter of submitting the
paperwork and getting started.
Mr. Long. So you all do not have an operational fusion
center as we speak?
Chief Bryant. It is not fully operational, no. As I stated,
some information is disseminated, but the information is from
open sources. You could pretty much get it from anywhere. The
law enforcement component to the fusion center is not quite
together yet.
Mr. Long. This is for any of you real briefly. How many
operational operating fusion centers are there in the country?
Chief Bryant. Seventy-two throughout the Nation.
Mr. Long. Okay, without the--not counting Pittsburgh?
Chief Bryant. Well, we are counted a little bit.
Mr. Long. Mr. Quijas, I don't know if you ever had cause to
run into my buddy Forest Mendenhall down there in High Point,
but good auctioneer buddy friend down there.
I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Meehan. Never losing an opportunity to push the
business, huh, Mr. Long?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Long.
At this point in time, the Chairman recognizes the
gentlelady from California, Ms. Hahn.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am really appreciating
this hearing that we are holding this morning.
I have a great success story from one of the two fusion
centers in L.A. County. This was from a press account about the
JRIC, which is the name of our fusion center. It was in 2006.
As the month-long Israeli-Hezbollah conflict embroiled the
Middle East earlier this year, in 2006, a group of analysts
working on the seventh floor of an inconspicuous office
building in Norwalk, California, near Los Angeles started to
connect some dots. In a room with low cubicles to ease the flow
of communication, specialists in areas like epidemiology,
hazardous material, and terrorism intelligence began analyzing
information and assessing various situations, possible threats,
and potential targets.
Through the JRIC intelligence, information valued for its
currency and relevancy was furnished to agencies throughout
Southern California, sending officers to reinforce sensitive
locations, like the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.
Soon after, on July 28, 2006, 1,200 miles from Los Angeles, a
gunman opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle,
wounding five women and killing one.
While cities scrambled to protect their Jewish centers, the
greater Los Angeles area was already prepared, thanks to the
JRIC's foresight, said John Miller, FBI assistant director of
public affairs. With its landmark model of interagency
cooperation, the center is one step ahead of counterterrorism
efforts Nation-wide, predicting threatening situations instead
of reacting to them.
The JRIC, a multi-agency fusion center, looks strategically
at all criminal activities locally and internationally. Since
opening, the center has grabbed the intelligence community's
attention and received praise from law enforcement agencies.
I thought it would be great to offer a success story this
morning as we talk about how critical and important these
fusion centers are. Sitting here as a relatively new Member of
Congress, you know, knowing what this center was able to
prevent, and then hearing from Ms. Bryant of centers that are
still not up and running, and talking about how we might
continue as Congress to ensure that we connect the dots--
because that is really what this is about. Since 9/11, that
seemed to be the recurring theme for us was, how do we connect
the dots?
We also have one at the Port of Los Angeles, which, you
know, the Port of Los Angeles between Los Angeles and Long
Beach is the largest port complex in the country. Forty-four
percent of all the trade that comes into this country comes
through that center. We know, if something were to happen at
one of those ports to knock it out of service, it would cost
this country, I believe, $2 million a day in our local economy.
By the way, every Congressional district depends on what comes
through those ports.
I am concerned about the funding. You know, I feel like we
need a continued revenue stream of funding for our fusion
centers. I am worried that many of these analysts in these
fusion centers were grant-funded, and I am concerned of some of
the--some of you have alluded to it, but I guess my question
would be, what do you see, realistically, as the impact of some
of our cuts back here, particularly in some of these security
grant fundings projects? What is that going to have--what kind
of an impact is that going to have, particularly on the
analysts that are in these fusion centers that, as I just read
that story, were critical in preventing a deadly attack in Los
Angeles?
So I am concerned about--I am concerned about the ports,
and I am concerned about the grant-funded analysts in these
fusion centers across the country.
Mr. McAllister. First, I could not have more eloquently
described a success story that, again, hearkens back to that
taking threat information, applying a localized context to it,
and then developing a mitigation strategy on how to address
that threat.
Pertaining to grants, again, remember that there--the State
and local fusion centers are locally owned, and they have a
variety of different sustainment methods in order to use either
general revenue or some grant money in order to sustain those
efforts.
Ms. Hahn. But I--let me just say, the centers have received
$426 million in Federal funds since 2004.
Mr. McAllister. Correct. What we do is we work to convey
the Secretary's message as far as how important when it comes
to the grant language that the National network of fusion
centers is interwoven into those sustainment efforts, through
grant language, as well as working on the assessment and
metrics in order to provide your colleagues here with the
return on investment from those already invested dollars that
have come from Congress.
Ms. Hahn. Anybody else want to speak to the port security
issue?
Mr. Velez-Villar. I can't speak to the funding issue, but I
can tell you about the port security issue. Having come from
L.A.--and I served as the Joint Terrorism Task Force supervisor
in Long Beach and was on the executive committee for the JRIC,
so I appreciate the comments on the JRIC and the success.
With regard to the ports, whether there is funding from DHS
to the fusion center for that, ultimately from a JTTF
perspective, protecting those ports was extremely important to
us. We created a squad at the FBI office solely dedicated to
port security. I served on the area maritime security committee
with the Coast Guard captain of the port, and we are constantly
working with the port to ensure that that infrastructure is
protected.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. I will yield my time.
Mr. Meehan. Thanks, Ms. Hahn.
At this point in time, the Chairman will now recognize the
gentlelady from New York, Ms. Hochul.
Ms. Hochul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to
congratulate my colleague, Congressman Higgins, on his
elevation as our Ranking Member on this subcommittee, so thank
you. It is great to be able to tag-team on issues that relate
to the Canadian border, as well. It is something that we are
very concerned about.
I am sorry I missed the earlier testimony. In fact, I am on
deck to ask questions of the Secretary of the Air Force about
something in our area, so I have to--I only am going to have
time for one question, because I have to run over there.
But representing the western New York area on the border
with Canada, tell me how our relationship with the Canadian
government has improved with respect to information sharing
since 9/11? That is critically important, with the four bridges
we have, bringing lots of people into our communities from
Canada, which has certainly standards to get into the country,
but we are always concerned about people crossing the border.
The airports, the air base we have there, and actually the
critical infrastructure, which is a huge hydroelectric power
facility that gives power to the grid to take to New York City.
So in my sense, we have some vulnerabilities up there, but
I want to know what is being done to engage the Canadian
government and how you feel that is going and, No. 2, can it be
improved?
Mr. McAllister. If I may--and I know you are short on
time--but the Secretary is very collaborative in the Beyond the
Borders Initiative. Our under secretary of intelligence and
analysis was just up with Canadian officials to address
information sharing and collaboration across the border,
particularly in the area of suspicious activity reporting and
the like.
So if you would like--I know you are short on time--we are
more than happy to come back and give you a more thorough brief
on what is underway.
Ms. Hochul. My question is: Are you comfortable with the
level of cooperation? Or is there room for improvement?
Mr. McAllister. My personal experience has been that the
Canadians are--have a thirst for knowledge and have the proper
perspective in order to do the right and collaborate in that
information sharing and collaboration across the border in
order to ensure both Canada and the United States is safe.
Ms. Hochul. Thank you.
I yield back the rest of my time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you for taking the time, Ms. Hochul, to
juggle the balls, but to get here for our committee hearing.
I now appreciate that we have been joined by another
seasoned veteran of the committee, and at this point in time,
if the gentleman from Minnesota is prepared to ask a question,
we would be delighted to entertain that opportunity.
Mr. Cravaack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it.
Let's see. I am trying to catch up, so--I just came out of
one committee, so I apologize to the Members of the committee.
Thank you very much. It is very important what you do, and I am
going to jump on in.
Fusion centers were originally intended to serve as a
conduit for information to flow from State and local
enforcement to Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint
Terrorism Task Force, JTTFs, and to promote regional
information sharing to combat terrorism by combining Federal,
State, and law enforcement resources.
Is there any metric that you can tell me in place to
measure how intelligence gathered at fusion centers has
supported the Federal counterterrorism investigations? I will
just open that up to a broad question.
Mr. Velez-Villar. Sir, I can't speak of a specific metric
that has been captured. I know within our organization, within
the FBI, we actually do capture--whenever we conduct an
investigation, whether it is terrorism-related or whether it is
criminal investigations, if there is support from the fusion
center, we capture that on a form that we utilize in which we
give it a score from one to four pertaining to the amount of
assistance that was provided by the fusion center. So we do
capture that internally within our field offices.
Mr. McAllister. Just to add to that, JTTFs are involved in
counterterrorism investigations and are operated and owned by
the FBI. Fusion centers are locally owned and operates and
collaborate in a more broader focus. They collaborate with each
other, which is important to note. Through the analysis that
fusion centers do, they complement what investigations are
underway by the JTTFs.
Mr. Cravaack. So you find the communication to be pretty
good, back and forth?
Mr. McAllister. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cravaack. Excellent. Federal guidance required that by
October 29, 2010, DHS was to develop an annual reporting
process that would document the total operational sustainment
costs of each of the 72 fusion centers in the National network.
Has this been completed yet?
Mr. McAllister. We are completing the 2011 assessment on a
National network. That document should be finalized and
available within the next month or two. We will be happy to
share that with you at that time.
Mr. Cravaack. Any red herrings?
Mr. McAllister. Not that I am aware of, but I have only
been here since December, so----
Mr. Cravaack. Welcome aboard.
Mr. McAllister. Thank you.
Mr. Cravaack. Let's talk a little bit about mission creep.
The number of fusion centers has gradually increased to about
77. Furthermore, the original mission of the fusion centers
expanded from preventing terrorist attacks in some places to
criminal analysis and emergency management. Has DHS strictly
defined the limit or scope of fusion centers' mission or our
jurisdiction?
Mr. McAllister. The answer is no. Fusion centers are owned
and operated locally. They are designated by the Governor or
the particular State that they reside in, both in primary and
recognized fusion centers. What we bring to bear is we provide
the senior intelligence officers and the secure network in
order for them to receive secure information, analyze it in a
local context, determine what is of value as far as a
mitigation strategy, as well as providing that localized
context back up through the intelligence community to add value
there.
Mr. Cravaack. In your opinion--and this is a
generalization, since you have been on-board since December--
how many total fusion centers are needed to ensure the country
remains safe? Is 77 enough? Do you think we need more? In your
opinion, in analyzing the threats that are out there and the--
and the geography of those, the demographic of those threats,
what do you think?
Mr. McAllister. I served as the deputy homeland security
adviser for the State of Florida, and there we had more than
one fusion center in that State. But what was incumbent upon me
and other senior executives within the State was to determine
the architecture in which information and information sharing
would be shared.
In response to my opinion, we cannot say a specific number,
as far as what is the ideal amount. That is determined by State
and local officials, as well as the Governors of the States and
territories.
Mr. Cravaack. Okay, thank you. Let me just--if you don't
mind, switch gears a little bit. Let's talk about immigration,
border security. It has come to my attention that ICE personnel
serve at some of the fusion centers. Is that correct?
Mr. McAllister. We have some personnel commingled in the
fusion centers, but at a minimum--and, again, I can base this
on my experience--at the State of Florida, the State fusion
center there, we didn't have an ICE personnel there, but our
analysts had built relationships with those individuals in
order to have a seamless collaboration on any--with that
component, as well as other components within DHS.
Mr. Cravaack. Okay. How much of ICE's fusion center would
you say is related to illegal immigration? Would that be
something that is specifically on your radar for any length of
time? Is it constant? What would you say?
Mr. McAllister. If I may, I would prefer taking that back
in order to get you the proper answer.
Mr. Cravaack. Okay. Okay.
Mr. McAllister. Thank you.
Mr. Cravaack. Do you think that--this is another general
question--I would like to ask each one of the members--if I may
just be indulged, sir--let me ask you this question. Do you
think we have a secure Southern Border? I will just take it
down the row, if you don't mind.
Mr. McAllister. I think that we have secured the border
more and that, as with any initiative or issue, there is always
room for improvement. If we can--you know, as a normal business
process, try and close those gaps, we strive to do so.
Mr. Cravaack. Do you think it is a vitally important
mission?
Mr. McAllister. Absolutely.
Mr. Cravaack. Sir, can I ask you?
Mr. Quijas. As Scott said, I have to agree that--I mean, it
is an on-going process. It is not an event. As long as we
continue to develop our relationships with our other Federal,
State, and local partners that have responsibility for the
Northern Border, I believe we are situated currently to have a
very secure Northern Border.
Mr. Cravaack. Coming from Minnesota, we appreciate that,
so--sir?
Mr. Velez-Villar. Yes, I would just echo what my colleagues
have said. Obviously, from the FBI's perspective, when it comes
to the Southern Border, we need to ensure that we are doing
everything possible to ensure that any violence or any crimes
along those borders are not coming through over the border into
our communities, and we are working very closely with our
partners along the borders to ensure that we effectively
mitigate those types of threats.
Mr. Cravaack. You would agree this is a vitally important
mission?
Mr. Velez-Villar. Absolutely.
Mr. Cravaack. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Ma'am.
Chief Bryant. I think for any of us to say that something
is completely secure would give a--would not be good to do. We
continually work to make sure that we do the best that we can
to make sure that our borders are safe, and that is with
working together.
Mr. Cravaack. You would agree that is a vitally important
mission, as well?
Chief Bryant. Yes.
Mr. Cravaack. Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the Chair's indulgence.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you to the gentleman from Minnesota.
I just have a quick follow-up line of inquiry, and I will
certainly invite any of my colleagues if they have any follow-
up questions to do so, as well. But I follow again from the
recognition, Mr. McAllister--among others, you have testified
that we have created this separation from the local fusion
centers, in the sense that they are products of State and local
government, so we encourage them, but we have created some kind
of separation.
My fear is of--sort of two sorts. One is that we have
created an expectation and we see the situation in Pittsburgh
where they have stood one up, but it isn't getting the full,
you know, level of support. Or is it inappropriate to have so
many, if, in fact, they are not going to be able to be, you
know, fully supported by a commitment from every agency to
participate?
Then you see differences among them, where some are all-
hazards and others seem to be more focused on counterterrorism.
How are we communicating with the local level to create some
kind of a sense of standardization and expectation with regard
to what we want from them? I would like to ask Mr. Quijas and
Mr. McAllister to respond to that.
Mr. McAllister. Thank you, sir.
First of all, there was developed baseline capabilities for
all State and urban fusion centers. That was done in--I think
it was 2009. As building upon that, there was grant language
that indicated that recognized fusion centers need to try and
adhere to that baseline capability so we have consistency
across the United States.
Further development was in 2010. Part of that grant
language indicated that in order to use preparedness grant
monies that the insurance--or the fusion centers have a privacy
policy in place, as well as compliance for all the personnel to
28 CFR Part 23, which deals with civil rights and civil
liberties.
There is a build-up to that, as well as what is important
to note is we work on the not only individual fusion centers
that are, again, owned and operated by local governments and
recognized by the Governors, but on a National network, as
well. So not only do we have information coming down from the
Federal Government and that localized context taking place, but
also fusion-center-to-fusion-center collaboration.
As an example, I can note one from Pennsylvania, actually,
which was a rape suspect who had committed a crime in
Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania fusion center had obtained
partial information on a main tag that collaborated with the
main fusion center, identified the suspect, found out that he
had traveled over into Canada, and subsequently through the
sharing of that information, led to an arrest in Canada for
that particular individual.
Mr. Meehan. How do we protect against what Ms. Bryant was
identifying, which is that there seems to be no consistency
with respect to how that pattern of communication takes place?
If you are talking fusion center to fusion center and then JTTF
down to fusion center and, you know, you have got a lot of
different ways the circuitry can work, is there any
predictability as to how it will regularly work? Or is it just
sort of catch as catch can?
Mr. McAllister. No, there is a system in place, sir. That
is further developed by the information-sharing environment,
through the PMISC, as it is called, which standardizes the flow
of information and intelligence down, as well as outward,
throughout the fusion center network.
I would be more than happy to further brief you at a later
time on that.
Mr. Meehan. Okay. Well, we may follow up on that. I thank
you.
My last question relates to this issue of privacy, because
the extent to which the local fusion centers, are they
conducting any of their own internal investigation and creating
some kind of local objective, either in all-hazards or in
particularly in monitoring and preventing future acts of
terrorism by understanding what they believe is going on in
their own region?
Mr. Velez and Ms. Bryant, maybe you could help me with
that.
Mr. Velez-Villar. I can't speak--I know the fusion centers
have privacy officers within each fusion centers. They take
civil liberties and privacy very seriously.
I could speak on behalf of the FBI, if that helps any. With
regards to privacy, civil liberties are something that we take
extremely seriously. Any time that we conduct an investigation
or an assessment, we are guided by a series of guidelines that
are very strict. The Constitution allows us to do certain
things. The attorney general guidelines allow us to do other
things.
Our bureau policies are even more strict, and that is how
we ensure that we take into account all the civil liberties and
the privacies of all our investigations and our assessments.
Chief Bryant. We are sworn to protect the civil liberties
of all individuals, so it is very important to us that we put
measurements in place to protect those privacies and so that we
don't do something that infringes on someone else's rights. So
I can't speak for all fusion centers, but I am sure that is a
top priority in each one of them.
Mr. Meehan. But you think there is sufficient training and
guidelines and otherwise to protect against the abusive
information that can be held and developed at a local level and
disseminated to others with the imprimatur of intelligence that
comes from a governmental agency?
Chief Bryant. We could always use additional training.
Training cannot hurt. We can always use additional training.
Mr. Meehan. All right. Thanks, Ms. Bryant.
Mr. McAllister. Mr. Chairman, I can give you some
statistics on that, if you would like. There are 77 privacy
policies in place right now. Grant guidance calls for, like I
said earlier, that all personnel comply with 28 CFR Part 23
training, as well as have an approved privacy policy in place.
There is a joint DHS-DOJ technical assistance program that
is in place that supports the development of further privacy
policies, working with civil liberties advocates within the
communities, and as well as training for analysts in that
particular endeavor.
We also have a privacy, civil rights, civil liberties
institute training program that has developed train-the-trainer
curriculum, and so far, we have had privacy and civil rights,
civil liberties train-the-trainer at 69 fusion centers, on-site
training for 35 fusion centers, as well as there are web
resource toolkits that are available and a subject matter
expert flyaway team, in order to go deal with a hot-button
issue that might emerge.
So there has been great emphasis placed on not only by the
Secretary, but the Department on the protection of privacy and
civil rights and civil liberties.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you.
At this point in time, do any of my colleagues--Mr.
Higgins? Any further--Mr. Long? One follow-up question?
Mr. Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I take umbrage with the
fact that you sort of chastised me a while ago for giving what
you thought was a shameless plug for a friend in North
Carolina, but I didn't even mention that Mr. Quijas worked 25
years for the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department in the
Show-me State, where the Missouri Auction School is located.
Now, that would have been a shameless plug, if I would have
said that.
I want to direct this to the entire panel, concerning the
Secret Service, counterfeiting operations, and internet
financial fraud, so that is going to be the--any of you can
answer if you will, but what regular intelligence data sets are
provided by the Secret Service regarding counterfeiting
operations and internet financial fraud? How is this data
shared with State and local agencies? I ask, because a small
land title company in Springfield, Missouri, had $400,000
lifted out of their bank account a little over a year ago, and
over a weekend. It went overseas, never to be returned.
The United States Secret Service led that investigation,
which I didn't understand that exactly, but--and this isn't the
first cyber crime in my district. So I want to make sure we are
doing what we can to help.
Mr. McAllister. If I may, Secret Service is a component of
the Department of Homeland Security. If, with your permission,
we will get a detailed brief on their efforts to combat----
Mr. Long. Great.
Mr. McAllister [continuing]. Cyber crime.
Mr. Long. Okay. Okay. Okay, and thank you all again for
being here today.
Mr. Meehan. I thank the gentleman from Missouri, and I
thank the panel for your preparation and for your being here
today, but most significantly for your work each and every day
in helping us to continue to be on the forefront of protecting
not just the homeland, but America across the world against the
threat of terrorism and the threat to our homeland. So thank
you for your service.
I ask you, as well, to continue to be diligent in helping
us to grow this bureaucracy--effective, to be sure, but it is a
huge challenge. We have got to be the ones ensuring that there
are efficiencies and, you know, effective communication up and
down the line.
So I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable
testimony and the Members for their questions. The Members of
the committee may have some additional questions for the
witnesses, and we will ask you to respond in writing for those
if they are forwarded. So the hearing record will be held open
for 10 days.
So, without objection, the committee stands adjourned.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Questions Submitted by Chairman Patrick Meehan for Scott McAllister and
Louis F. Quijas
Question 1. The Baseline Capabilities for State and Major Urban
Area Fusion Centers include ``strategic analysis services.'' How have
these services been used by DHS to develop a National threat picture?
Answer. State and major urban area fusion centers (fusion centers)
are State and local resources. The strategic analysis services that the
Baseline Capabilities encourage fusion centers to develop are intended
to serve their respective State, local, Tribal, and territorial (SLTT)
jurisdictions. These strategic analysis services enable local officials
and front-line personnel to understand the local implications of
National intelligence and better protect their communities. The DHS
Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) does, however, leverage
fusion center strategic analysis to inform analysis of the evolving
threat environment and create a more comprehensive and holistic
National threat picture. For example, in March 2012, I&A produced a
collaborative analytic product exploring the possibility of illicit
khat sales being utilized to raise funds for terrorist activity that
incorporated reporting from five fusion centers.
Question 2. DHS has participated in drafting Federal strategies
such as the Obama administration's Strategy to Combat Transnational
Organized Crime. This strategy covers many types of illegal activity
such as drug trafficking, human smuggling, trafficking in persons,
intellectual property theft, and cybercrime. These affect Americans at
the State and local level every day. Since 9/11, fusion centers have
evolved to deal with criminal, public safety, and terrorism matters
across multiple disciplines.
Has DHS considered leveraging fusion center assets to help with
National-level strategies that deal with issues other than terrorism?
Answer. DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) regularly
engages Fusion Centers in strategy and policy development. Recent
examples include the National Intelligence Priorities Framework and
Presidential Policy Directive--8 National Prevention Framework.
In addition, I&A is leveraging fusion center assets for
intelligence production and information gathering to support the
execution of National strategies, and to address National homeland
security issues related to transnational criminal activities and
enterprises. For example, as part of the DHS Priority Actions
Implementing the White House Transnational Organized Crime (TOC)
Strategy in 2012, I&A personnel are working with the fusion centers to
develop regional production and collection plans which address the
collective TOC-related intelligence and information needs of Federal,
State, and local stakeholders. These production plans will include the
identification of intelligence gaps related to TOC which are of
interest to both DHS and the fusion centers, and which can be answered
through the generation of intelligence products--either by I&A, DHS
Components, the fusion centers, or through interagency joint production
efforts. Additionally, related information collection plans are being
developed to identify how DHS, intelligence community, and Federal,
State, and local assets can be effectively and appropriately leveraged
to gather information to fill critical information gaps about TOC
adversaries and operations. I&A is also using this collaborative
intelligence support planning approach with the fusion centers to
support Federal, State, and local law enforcement and public safety
operations related to TOC prevention and interdiction.
Question 3. Not so long ago there were 72 fusion centers. Today,
that number is 77. Would you please explain how and why that number
continues to grow? Is DHS planning to assign Intelligence Officers to
each of these new centers? At what point do we reach a saturation point
where the number of fusion centers yields diminishing return,
particularly in the current fiscal environment?
Answer. Fusion centers are State and local entities designated by
State governors, and with the bulk of a fusion center's work supporting
State and local needs; therefore, DHS does not control their number.
While the number of fusion centers has held steady at 72 for several
years, over the past several months, the Governor of the U.S. Virgin
Islands notified DHS of the creation of a territory-wide fusion center
and the Governor of Texas notified DHS of four additional recognized
fusion centers for a new total of 77. Like the decision to designate
fusion centers, the saturation point for the number of fusion centers
is a State-by-State decision.
DHS uses the June 2011 Federal Resource Allocation Criteria (RAC)
Policy issued by the Program Manager for the Information Sharing
Environment (PM-ISE) to prioritize allocation of Federal resources such
as an intelligence officer, classified connectivity, training courses,
and technical assistance to fusion centers.
Question 4. What are DHS' primary objectives in providing funds and
personnel to State fusion centers? Do these objectives match the State
fusion centers objectives?
Answer. DHS does not provide funds to fusion centers. Grant funds
are available to States which may in turn use them to support fusion
centers, but fusion centers are primarily funded and staffed by State
and local governments.
DHS does support the fusion centers through the deployment of
intelligence officers, classified connectivity, training courses, and
technical assistance. Through the deployment of these resources, DHS
objectives are to establish focal points within the State and local
environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of
threat-related information among Federal and State, local, Tribal, and
territorial (SLTT) partners in support of homeland security and
counterterrorism objectives. While important, these Federal objectives
are seldom enough to justify the substantial State and local investment
in each fusion center. Therefore, each fusion center has primary duties
that vary based on the environment in which the center operates; some
have adopted an ``all-crimes'' approach, whereas others have also
included an ``all-hazards'' approach. DHS will continue to focus its
support on achievement of the identified critical operational
capabilities (receive, analyze, disseminate, and gather), while
respecting that a fusion center's mission will also be defined based on
jurisdictional needs.
Question 5. Do you believe there is a long-term need for separate
offices with outreach to State and local law enforcement, or in your
opinion could it someday make sense to roll the mission into a single
place within DHS?
Answer. The breadth of DHS's support for State, local, and Tribal
law enforcement make its effective provision by a single DHS office
unlikely. DHS's support goes beyond intelligence and information-
sharing matters, to include coordination during policy development and
operational activities, such as responses to or recovery from an
incident. While the Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) leads
efforts to support the timely sharing of intelligence and information
through fusion centers, DHS Components also engage State and local law
enforcement partners beyond fusion centers (e.g., U.S. Customs and
Border Protection on border-related issues, U.S. Coast Guard on
maritime issues). In addition, the Office for State and Local Law
Enforcement (OSLLE) plays an important role in advocating for and
advising the Secretary on the issues, concerns, and requirements of our
State, local, and Tribal law enforcement partners during policy
development and strategy formulation. In order to assist DHS in
synchronizing and aligning the internal DHS messaging about Department-
level initiatives and programs, the OSLLE chairs an internal DHS
coordination body--the Component Law Enforcement Outreach Committee
(CLEOC) whose mission is to align and coordinate with the Component-
level offices located throughout DHS who perform outreach to non-
Federal law enforcement. As described in the response to Question No.
6, the National Operations Center (NOC) within the Office of Operations
Coordination and Planning (OPS) provides incident and event reporting
to homeland security enterprise partners, including State and local law
enforcement stakeholders, through the NOC's common operating picture.
Question 6. By maintaining multiple offices within DHS that
outreach to State and locals in different ways, are we inadvertently
reducing the effectiveness of the fusion centers? Particularly given
this budget climate, if we were to truly focus State and local
information sharing at the fusion centers, would it raise the stature
of the fusion centers, and perhaps ultimately make them more valuable
to their State thereby helping them in the fight for State grant
dollars?
Answer. DHS offices carry out different mandated functions which
require engagement with State, local, and Tribal partners based upon
their mission set or for matters that fall outside of the intelligence
and information-sharing realm. Departmental-level intelligence and
information sharing is focused through fusion centers (for strategic,
operational, and tactical products) and the Office of Intelligence and
Analysis (I&A), but this is only one piece of the daily interaction
that the Department's Components and offices have with State, local,
and Tribal governments. For example, the Office for State and Local Law
Enforcement (OSLLE), through its daily interactions with law
enforcement associations, is responsible for sharing information about
DHS programs and initiatives. The OSLLE is also responsible for
ensuring that DHS leadership is aware of and considers the issues,
concerns, and requirements of the State, local, and Tribal law
enforcement communities during Department-wide policy development.
Question 7a. Is there an accounting of how many different offices
within the Department with ``State and local outreach'' or ``State and
local information sharing'' as part of its mission?
Answer. The main DHS offices responsible for State, local, and
Tribal outreach are the Office for State and Local Law Enforcement
(OSLLE) for law enforcement associations and the Office of
Intergovernmental Affairs (IGA) for State, local, Tribal and
territorial elected and appointed officials. The Office of Intelligence
& Analysis (I&A) is the lead for intelligence and information sharing.
Other DHS Components have direct communication with their State, local,
and Tribal counterparts on operational issues.
Question 7b. How many of those offices have regular, direct contact
with State and local law enforcement, versus passing their information
through one of your offices?
Answer. All DHS Operating Components have regular contact at the
operational level with their counterparts in State, local, and Tribal
law enforcement. This contact cannot and should not be confined to a
single office.
Question 7c. How are these offices coordinating with each other?
Answer. The OSLLE chairs an internal DHS coordination body--the
Component Law Enforcement Outreach Committee (CLEOC) whose mission is
to align and coordinate with the Component-level offices located
throughout DHS who perform outreach to non-Federal law enforcement. In
addition, IGA holds weekly calls with all of the DHS intergovernmental
offices or component points of contact. IGA also holds quarterly face-
to-face meetings. During these calls and meetings, the participating
offices provide read-outs on current and future interactions with
State, local, Tribal, and territorial officials to ensure effective
coordination across the Department. Additionally, IGA has specific
points of contact within each component/office. As topics/issues arise
that should be brought to the attention of other DHS Offices, IGA helps
to facilitate that conversation and coordination.
Question 7d. Who is ultimately ``in charge'' of ensuring they are
coordinating?
Answer. While IGA, OSLLE, and I&A share this responsibility with
specific stakeholders, IGA's weekly coordination call helps to increase
and facilitate the level of coordination between these offices.
Question 7e. What ability does that office/person have to hold
other ``outreach offices'' accountable for coordination?
Answer. Regular communications occur between IGA, OSLLE, and I&A to
ensure that stakeholder outreach is well-coordinated and effective, and
it is in everyone's best interest to ensure that the meetings,
briefings, and messages to our stakeholders are delivered in a clear
and consistent manner.
Question 8. The President's budget for fiscal year 2013 proposes to
consolidate eligible activities of the State and local preparedness
grants into a single grant program, the National Preparedness Grant,
with priority given to projects that are determined to be ``deployable
assets.'' In your estimation, would fusion centers be considered a
deployable asset?
Answer. Fusion centers are not deployable assets. The proposed 2013
National Preparedness Grant Program (NPGP) vision document clearly
states that a portion of grant funding may be used by States and high-
threat urban areas to sustain core capabilities that may or may not be
deployable, such as fusion centers.
Question 9. Given the deep cuts we have seen to the DHS grant
dollars for SLT Law Enforcement, what impact will these cuts have to
the continuing maturation of fusion centers across the network?
Answer. DHS is committed to resourcing the homeland security
mission responsibilities of the fusion centers by providing deployed
intelligence officers, training, technical assistance, exercise
support, security clearances, connectivity to Federal systems, and
technology. However the overall resourcing of each fusion center is
dependent on the circumstances of their State or local government's
budget and commitment to the effort, or on their successful competition
for, and subsequent distribution of, grant dollars. With regards to
grants, the amount of grant funds leveraged by individual State
Administrative Agencies (SAAs) for fusion centers varies greatly. DHS
cannot predict the exact impact of the reductions in grant funding.
Fusion centers continually compete for funding support with all other
State and local homeland security and emergency management-related
priorities, such as interoperable communications, emergency operations
planning and emergency operation centers, personal protective
equipment, etc.
Question 10. Currently, States have discretion in allocating
homeland security grant funds for fusion center activities. Do you
believe this structure has provided sufficient Federal funding to
fusion centers? If not, what guidance would you provide the States to
assist them in determining appropriate levels of funding for fusion
centers?
Answer. Ideally, each State and local entity with a fusion center
would sustain it largely through its own resources, with DHS providing
an intelligence officer, classified connectivity, training and other
assistance directed at the portion of the fusion center's work
dedicated to homeland security mission responsibilities. In many fusion
centers, this is already the case. In others--predominately those that
are still building their capability--the fusion center is heavily
reliant on the Federal grants process. The State Administrative
Agencies (SAA) must consider a variety of factors unique to each
individual State when determining the amount of grant funds allocated
to the fusion center. DHS's position is that States should direct
Federal grant funds towards identified gaps in their achievement of
Baseline Capabilities. These goals are identified and updated via
participation in the annual Fusion Center Assessment Program, managed
by DHS, which is a requirement for access to DHS grants.
Question 11. Secretary Napolitano has repeatedly stated that State
and Local Fusion Centers are the primary contact point between the
Department (DHS) and State and local law enforcement. Would you please
elaborate on why having a State and Local Law Enforcement Office within
DHS Policy--and separate from the State and Local Program Office--is
necessary?
Answer. In 2007, Congress created the Office for State and Local
Law Enforcement (OSLLE) to be the voice for State, local, and Tribal
law enforcement within DHS. OSLLE acts as the Departments primary
liaison between DHS and our non-Federal law enforcement partners.
In October 2011, Secretary Napolitano spoke to the International
Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). In her address, she stressed
the importance of the OSLLE and its unique mission: `` . . . [W]e
recently filled a critical position at DHS that I know is important to
IACP members--our Assistant Secretary for State and Local Law
Enforcement. We're proud to have Lou Quijas now leading this office. He
is well-known to the IACP, having worked closely with you during his
time overseeing the FBI Office of Law Enforcement Coordination. And as
the former Chief of Police of High Point, North Carolina, and a 25-year
veteran of law enforcement in Kansas City, Missouri, he understands the
needs and perspective of our Nation's police officers. I know he is
committed--as I am--to strengthening our partnership not just with
IACP, but all law enforcement, at all levels.''
The OSLLE is not a source of intelligence or operational
coordination, but rather is the Department's liaison to strengthen the
partnership and sharing of ideas and opportunities between DHS and the
non-Federal law enforcement community.
To ensure that this information is coordinated between the DHS
Components and messaging is consistent, the OSLLE formed the DHS
Component Law Enforcement Outreach Committee, an intra-agency
coordination body composed of members from across the Department that
have some level of responsibility for outreach to our non-Federal law
enforcement partners.
Within DHS, the OSLLE serves as an advocate for non-Federal law
enforcement. As an outreach office, the OSLLE is responsible for
ensuring that DHS leadership is aware of and considers the issues,
concerns, and requirements of State, local, and Tribal law enforcement
during policy development and strategy formation. As Assistant
Secretary Quijas stated in his oral testimony to the Committee on
Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence on
February 28, 2012, ``I believe this was the intention of Congress when
it created and named my office, the Office for State and Local Law
Enforcement.''
In contrast to the OSLLE, the DHS Office of Intelligence and
Analysis (I&A) has the mandate within the intelligence community (IC)
to share strategic information, operational information, and
intelligence with State, local, and Tribal governments and the private
sector. This is a vital and high-priority mission within DHS; however,
it is distinct from the mission of the OSLLE. Although, when
appropriate and authorized, the OSLLE may assist in expanding the
dissemination of this type of information, I&A remains the primary
component within DHS responsible for the analysis and dissemination of
operational information and intelligence through various means, to
include State and major urban area fusion centers. Additionally, DHS
Components also have direct communication with law enforcement
partners, including fusion centers, to coordinate and share information
related to operational issues in accordance with their respective
missions.
The distinction between I&A, operational components, and the OSLLE
is a matter of type and scope of information. I&A focuses primarily on
the analysis and sharing of information and intelligence, and DHS
components focus on the coordination of operational activities and
information. The OSLLE focuses on coordinating Departmental positions
and communicating to our non-Federal law enforcement partners a broad
range of information, including DHS initiatives and the opinions,
concerns, and requests of State, local, and Tribal law enforcement
officials that can affect and be affected by Departmental policy.
Questions Submitted by Chairman Patrick Meehan for Eric Velez-Villar
Question 1. What criteria does the FBI use to determine which FBI
employees are assigned to fusion centers? What additional training, if
any, does the FBI provide to its personnel assigned to fusion centers?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. From an information management perspective, some fusion
centers leaders note the requirement for their personnel to routinely
check numerous Federal information and intelligence systems to be
certain they are aware of all of the intelligence that may be relevant
to their State. What have you done, perhaps jointly with the DHS and/or
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Program Manager
for the Information Sharing Environment, to streamline how FBI
information flows to fusion centers?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. It is the committee's understanding that to standardize
its approach to interacting with fusion centers, the FBI Fusion Center
Integration Unit (FCIU) has evaluated its field offices' engagement
with fusion centers. What are the FBI's plans to work closer and more
effectively with fusion centers and promote the continuity of
information sharing at the field office level, not merely headquarter-
released products? What steps have you taken to require all field
offices to take the same forward-leaning information-sharing approach?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
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