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Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI)

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 an evaluation environment involving multiple pilot projects throughout the United States. The effort will be evolving into a national program to share terrorism-related SAR data at all levels of government. The NSI incorporates agencies’ individual SAR processes into a nationwide capability to share terrorism-related 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 Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), with the Bureau of Justice Assistance providing overall program management services to PM-ISE. The IJIS Institute and the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) are working together on this program and providing technical management, business analyst and system integration services to BJA to establish a 14 pilot site Evaluation Environment referred to as the ISE-SAR EE. Pilot sites include fusion centers in three states, nine major cities, and at DHS and the FBI. The purpose of the ISE-SAR EE is to evaluate best practices in the observation, gathering, analysis, evaluation and reporting of suspicious behaviors or activity that may have a potential link with terrorist organizations to include strict attention to the protection of civil liberties and citizen privacy.

Learn more about the National Fusion Center Technology Management Program

Visit the NSI Web site

NSI Projects

• Planning activities in support of the national rollout of the NSI
• SAR IEPD Development
• SAR Library Project
• SAR Distributed Query (Shared Space) Pilot Implementation Project (three states)
• Expanded SAR Pilot Implementations (nine major cities)

NSI Accomplishments

 NSI Activity Summary (Second Quarter 2011)
 NSI Activity Summary (First Quarter 2011)
 NSI Activity Summary (Fourth Quarter 2010)
 NSI Activity Summary (Third Quarter 2010)
 NSI Activity Summary (Second Quarter 2010)
 NSI Activity Summary (First Quarter 2010)
 NSI Activity Summary (October 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (September 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (August 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (July 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (June 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (May 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (April 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (March 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (February 2009)
 NSI Activity Summary (January 2009)

Further Reading and Resources

 Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI)
The challenge: Lack of a technical information sharing architecture and data exchange standards inhibit the effective and timely sharing of information that may be indicative of planned terrorist actions or related criminal activities. The solution: Establishment of the SAR Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) and the deployment of distributed repository, search, and retrieval IT resources to permit the application of operational and technical best practices to support a national rollout of the NSI. Read the IJIS Institute case study.

The Information Sharing Environment Web site contains an extensive library of SAR documentation, some of which are provided below. For more information, visit these Web sites:

• Information Sharing Environment
• Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI)

ISE-SAR Functional Standard
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.

PM-ISE Fact Sheets

• Update to Suspicious Activity Reporting Functional Standard Provides Greater Privacy and Civil Liberties Protections
• Nationwide Suspicious Activities Reporting Initiative
• Initial Privacy and Civil Liberties Analysis of the Information Sharing Environment‐Suspicious Activity Reporting (ISE‐SAR) Functional Standard and Evaluation Environment

 NSI Concept of Operations (December 2008)

 ISE-SAR Evaluation Environment Segment Architecture (December 2008)

 Findings and Recommendations of the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) Support and Implementation Project (October 2008)
The purpose of the Findings and Recommendations of the SAR Support and Implementation Project is to describe the all-crimes approach to gathering, processing, reporting, analyzing, and sharing of suspicious activity by the local police agency.

 Suspicious Activity Reporting Process Implementation Checklist
A companion document to the Findings and Recommendations of the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) Support and Implementation Project report.

 Terrorism Information Sharing and the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Report Initiative: Background and Issues for Congress (November 2009)
By Mark A. Randol, Specialist in Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism, Congressional Research Service.