Good morning, Class,
Within the United States I would argue that we do not face a lack of intelligence capability, but rather we lack an intelligence and information sharing platform that is universal and connected at every level of the government and their agencies. Without a doubt the federal government is equipped with plenty of intelligence gathering agencies as well as the state and local level maintaining their own unique forms. The key is to establish a line of communication in the sharing of information and intelligence that goes from the bottom to the top and reverse. Perhaps the greatest obstacle in such a sharing platform is weeding out what information is relevant to what agency/organization and to what department does the information need to get to.
In a perfect world, the raw data, information, or intelligence would be placed into a sharing platform that would automatically disseminate the substance to the appropriate agency for their consumption, at all levels. However, this is not practicable because the artificial intelligence necessary for that form of computing doesn’t exist, yet. Nevertheless, this is a relatively close asset already utilized that is similar to such technology, the National Network of Fusion Centers. These fusion centers allow for lateral information sharing as well as sharing up and down the governmental levels (UMGC, 2020). The implementation I would propose is a nationwide regionally structured fusion center network of sharing capabilities.
What would be required to implement such a broad network of fusion centers is a breakdown of the chain of commands from the agent/officer on the street to the office of the President; a full command tree. For every agency and department they would need to structure their fusion centers at a specific regional level, similar to the Joint Regional Intelligence Centers that specific citywide agencies utilize currently (UMGC, 2020). The breakdown of jurisdictional and regional level fusion centers would be perhaps the greatest challenge in all because you would need to ensure one fusion center is not overwhelmed with the amount of intelligence collection and gathering. However, once the fusion centers are established throughout every government level to include the private sector entities as well as the homeland security entities, the centers would need to be connected via a massive country wide network. As the information and intelligence is processed at each fusion center it would be redirected to the appropriate level and respective agencies that would benefit and take action on such substance. As the greatest obstacle is weeding out relevant material, the network of fusion centers should be equipped with the adequate amount of resources and manpower to ensure the information if combed through efficiently and in a timely manner.
UMGC. (2020). Module 3: Information and intelligence sharing among federal, state, and local intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security entities. Retrieved from https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/le/content/449901/viewContent/17731582/View
