National Fusion Center Technology Management
State, local, tribal, and federal partners, along with several national law enforcement organizations, have collaborated to develop the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI). Although the initiative began as an operational study project, it is currently designated as a National Security program by the White House and is being deployed at state, local and regional fusion centers in the United States, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and at selected other federal components. The purpose of the NSI program is to improve the sharing of terrorism-related SAR reports that may have a potential nexus with terrorism pre-planning activities at all levels of government. The NSI incorporates agencies' individual SAR processes into a nationwide capability to share terrorism-related NIEM formatted SAR data. The SAR process focuses on what law enforcement has been doing for years—gathering information regarding behaviors and incidents associated with crime and establishing a process to share information to detect and prevent criminal activity, including crime associated with domestic and international terrorism.
The NSI was formalized by the (ODNI), (PM-ISE), with the providing overall program management services to PM-ISE. The IJIS Institute and the (IIR) are working together on this program, and are providing technical management, business analyst and system integration services to BJA.
Fusion Center Technology Assistance Program
The IJIS Institute is also partnering with , , and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security in delivering the BJA-sponsored Fusion Center Technology Assistance (TA) program. This initiative has hastened the identification and fulfillment of fusion center training and support needs. The table below provides the report abstracts from these engagements.
| State | TA Engagement Report Abstract |
|---|---|
| Maryland | Assessment of technology assistance needs |
| Nebraska | Assistance in developing IT strategic plan that includes help to identify solutions for dual factor authentication web portal, threat/warning monitoring and notification, and to develop the basis for use of predictive analytics. |
Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR)
A key project in the national fusion center management efforts is the Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) information sharing standards development and related evaluation projects. The SAR project brings together a number of federal, state, and local agencies to develop and implement evaluation environments that test systems for gathering, analyzing, and sharing suspicious activity.
Learn more about the Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI).
National Fusion Center Resources
Comprehensive set of guidelines for developing and operating a fusion center. Use this document to target resource investments to highest priority needs, leverage best practices from other centers, improve coordination and partnerships, develop policies, plan services, and set up fusion center governance.
Identifies capabilities and related operational standards necessary for a fusion center to be considered capable of performing basic functions. Use this document to identify capability gaps, and plan to close those gaps through investments, recruiting, training, technology, and other means to identify, prioritize, and allocate resources most effectively and efficiently.
Fire Service Integration for Fusion Centers
An appendix to the Baseline Capabilities for State and Major Urban Area Fusion Centers document.
Provides a common architectural structure for federal, state, local, tribal, foreign partner, and private sector participants to incorporate their information sharing capabilities into the Information Sharing Environment. Use this document to understand the logical structure of ISE business processes, information flows and relationships, services, and high-level data packet descriptions and exchange relationships.
Establishes functional and technical standards for sharing information within the ISE. Note that the functional standards include NIEM Information Exchange Package Documentations (IEPDs). Use this document to understand the rules, guidelines, technical methodologies, and practices underlying the operation of the ISE.
Establishes vision, goals, and recommendations for setting up the ISE. Use this document to understand the background on the ISE and its origins.
Provides a privacy protection framework that requires ISE participants to implement core privacy protections, such as data quality, redress, and data security, for ISE information. Use this document to understand the privacy requirements of ISE participation.
Provides a logical arrangement of business and functional drivers, information exchange requirements, outcomes, and constraints for building the operational ISE-SAR EE. This document assists program managers, chief architects, and systems designers and implementers at fusion centers and at federal departments and agencies as they determine programmatic and solution architecture strategies supporting the ISE-SAR EE business case.
Defines a criminal intelligence file and recommends policies and guidelines for evaluation, classification, dissemination, and management of a criminal intelligence file. Use this document to develop and adopt standards-based practices for managing intelligence files.
Provides a plan, with detailed action items and recommendations, for the effective sharing of criminal intelligence among law enforcement agencies. Use this document to align local activities with an overall national strategy for sharing criminal intelligence.
Establishes a shared vision and recommended action items and capabilities for the nationwide sharing of information and intelligence. Use this document to align local activities with an overall national strategy for sharing information and intelligence.
Establishes standards for law enforcement analysts and analysis based on the intelligence cycle. Use this document to understand standard practices of law enforcement analysis.
Provides guidance for the process of developing agency policy that articulates agency privacy and civil liberties obligations and supports information sharing, as well as protects privacy and information quality interests. Use this document to guide the analysis of privacy requirements and the development of privacy policies.
A NIEM-conformant IEPD for suspicious activity reporting. Use this document to accelerate interoperable implementation of SAR with and among fusion centers and to align implementation with national best practices.
Provides a set of technical requirements, specifications, industry standards, guidelines, and recommendations for applying technology mechanisms to support the electronic expression and enforcement of privacy policy. Use this document to understand how to leverage industry standards, such as Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML), in implementing technology solutions that enforce privacy policies.
Provides a methodology for capturing information exchange requirements and a “jumping off point” for developing services (in conformance with the Justice Reference Architecture) and NIEM-conformant exchange specifications (IEPDs). Use this resource to document information exchange requirements and drive consensus-based and mission-oriented planning for information sharing.
Provides a set of specifications and a common terminology for implementing a service-oriented architecture for information sharing. Use this document to implement SOA efficiently and effectively and align SOA implementation with national justice standards, such as NIEM.
Federal Support to Fusion Centers
From the web site:
- DHS and DOJ's Fusion Process Technical Assistance Program and Services
To assist in the development of baseline levels of capability, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have partnered to offer a series of fusion center technical assistance services. These services have been developed based on the input and guidance of the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global), the Global Intelligence Working Group, and the Global's Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council and are delivered by a group of subject-matter experts with experience in the development and operation of fusion centers. - DHS's
In addition to the Technical Assistance Program, DHS is deploying personnel to assist Fusion Centers in blending relevant law enforcement and intelligence information analysis and coordinating security measures in order to reduce threats in local communities. - DOJ's
DOJ's Office of Justice Programs, Information Technology Initiatives Web site is an Internet-based resource that enables justice practitioners at all levels of government to access timely and useful information from information sharing and technology integration processes, initiatives, and technological developments. The Web site provides a wealth of helpful information, such as integration profiles for States, case studies, system descriptions and overviews, funding approaches, and models of integrated systems. - DOJ's
The Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) serves as a Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) and advises the U.S. Attorney General on justice information sharing and integration initiatives. Global was created to support the broad scale exchange of pertinent justice and public safety information. It promotes standards-based electronic information exchange to provide the justice community with timely, accurate, complete, and accessible information in a secure and trusted environment. - (NCIRC)
Provides a secure "one-stop shop" for local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement to keep up with the latest developments in the field of criminal intelligence. This Web site contains information regarding law enforcement intelligence operations and practices. Criminal justice professionals now have a centralized resource information bank to access a multitude of criminal intelligence resources in a secure environment.
This calendar is designed to provide State, local, tribal, and federal law enforcement with a single point of access to federally sponsored intelligence training programs that meet the Minimum Criminal Intelligence Training Standards. The calendar is an initiative of the Intelligence Training Coordination Working Group and the Counter-Terrorism Training Coordination Working Group and was developed with funding support from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance.