Established by the Department of Homeland Security, Fusion Centers are centrally operated intelligence hubs that are designed to ensure on-the-ground response teams can gather, analyze and share threat-related information between local, state, tribal and federal partners.
Fusion Centers are intended to mitigate intelligence gaps, improve situational awareness and facilitate the type of information-sharing and communication that are key to mitigating risks across the nation. A key output of Fusion Centers are Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), which are sources of information used to quickly and uniformly assess and share information with relevant partners.
Today, there is at least one Fusion Center in every U.S. state and territory. However, it stands to reason that the more Fusion Centers collecting and sharing information, the safer the general public is and the more resilient our critical infrastructure and operations can be.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has a charter to support state and local governments as they apply for grant funding to establish Fusion Centers within their communities. But even after funding is secured, many state and local law enforcement agencies encounter challenges in standing up these centers operationally.
This recurring need is the genesis of GDIT’s Fusion Center in a Box framework.
Across our teams, many of whom are former federal and local law enforcement, homeland security or counterterrorism professionals, we repeatedly heard the same questions and pain points. With more than two decades of experience supporting Fusion Center missions nationwide, we realized there was an opportunity to consolidate lessons learned, identify best practices and create a repeatable framework that communities could use as guidance when establishing or maturing their own fusion centers.
Our Fusion Center in a Box framework outlines practical guidance on how to staff, establish and operate Fusion Centers. It addresses how state and local law enforcement bodies can integrate into national information-sharing environments and how emerging technologies can be leveraged to collect, analyze and disseminate information more effectively.
State and local fusion centers are essential for coordinating with others to provide situational awareness in emergency response scenarios; they’re integral to the kinds of public health partnerships required during biological weapons incidents or health security threats; they provide a platform for sharing information on transnational organized crime, drug trafficking, human smuggling and gang activity; and they’re massively important during cyber incidents, especially as these grow in number and sophistication and increasingly target critical infrastructure.
With multiple mega-events taking place in the U.S. over the next few years, such as the World Cup and the Olympics, fusion centers and the model of inter-government cooperability have never been more important. These events require months, and often more than a year, of coordinated security planning across local, state, federal and other government agencies. During this period, analysts consider online activity, open-source reporting and live news to spot emerging issues. They can push real-time alerts to affected countries, enabling partners to respond quickly and stay ahead of threats.
This is difficult work, but it’s essential; and communities shouldn’t be tasked with taking it on alone. Every mission partner, every systems integrator has an obligation to share its learnings and make it easier for collaboration in an emergency.
The Fusion Center in a Box framework reflects this philosophy. It represents a proactive look across our technologies, experiences and experts to enable state and local first responders to envision what is possible for stronger, more resilient information-sharing capabilities that keep their communities and all of us, safer.
