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AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 1

After the September 11 terrorist attack, the federal

government responded by reforming existing

programs and adding new entities and activities.

This new “homeland security” apparatus was born

under the duress of a crisis, with the best of

intentions. Knowing our policymakers rarely get it

exactly right, we should occasionally review their

decisions and make reforms when necessary. In

our domestic counterterrorism activities, getting it

right is critical.

As the cliché notes, the law enforcement entities

charged with protecting us from terrorists must

succeed all of the time because the terrorists need

only succeed once. Those difficult odds should not

be made longer by trapping law enforcement in a

fragmented, inefficient, and costly multiheaded

system. Yet today, federal, state, and local law

enforcement entities outside of Washington are

doing the work to gather, share, and analyze

information and intelligence within several, often

siloed structures.

The two primary structures are the Joint Terrorism

Task Forces (JTTF) of the US Department of

Justice (DOJ) and fusion centers of the US

Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The

bulk of the activity occurs in the JTTFs, while the

fusion centers have struggled to show meaningful

utility in the information and intelligence arena.

Because these two entities compete for finite

resources and run the risk of inadvertently failing

to share information or intelligence that could help

prevent a terrorist attack, DHS and DOJ should

merge the fusion centers into the older, more

established and active JTTFs.

By consolidating all federal, state, and local

information and intelligence activities into one

entity, we would give our law enforcement

Consolidate Domestic Intelligence Entities Under the FBI By Matt A. Mayer March 2016

KEY POINTS

 Federal, state, and local law enforcement gather and share information and intelligence using two often-

siloed entities: the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) and fusion centers supported by the

Department of Homeland Security.

 This divided structure is inefficient and runs the risk of not connecting key information and intelligence

to other data to help detect and prevent a terrorist attack. It has essentially recreated the wall between

intelligence and investigation that contributed to America’s failure to detect and stop the 9/11 attack.

 Fusion centers provide little more than duplicative and redundant information or intelligence and have

rarely, if ever, provided meaningful intelligence of a potential terrorist attack.

 Eliminating fusion centers or merging them into JTTFs would strengthen state and local information

and intelligence activities.

AEI Series on Homeland Security Reform

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 2

community the best opportunities to detect and to

prevent terrorist attacks.

Background

As early as 1980, DOJ under the auspices of the

Federal Bureau of Investigation established JTTFs

at the state and local level to work with law

enforcement. JTTFs are “small cells of highly

trained, locally based, passionately committed

investigators, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts,

and other specialists from dozens of US law

enforcement and intelligence agencies.”1 JTTF

members collaboratively investigate possible

terrorist activities and then serve as the primary

responders if an incident occurs.

As the 9/11 Commission Report noted, a JTTF was

“first tried out in New York City in 1980 in

response to a spate of incidents involving domestic

terrorist organizations.”2 The New York City JTTF

brought together federal, state, and local law

enforcement personnel after the first World Trade

Center bombing in 1993. In implicit recognition of

the joint aspect of the JTTF, the New York Police

Department (NYPD) and the FBI were equally

represented on the task force.

With more than 100 JTTFs around the United

States, “the JTTFs have substantially contributed

to improved information sharing and operational

capabilities at the state and municipal levels.”3

More than 5,000 members from federal, state, and

local law enforcement belong to the JTTFs, and

there are JTTFs in all 28 of the higher-risk urban

areas. These higher-risk urban areas have also

received homeland security grants from DHS. Such

high-level connections between the FBI and state

and local law enforcement make a strong argument

that the FBI should be the federal lead on

counterterrorism efforts. In fact, under federal law,

the FBI is the “lead agency in domestic intelligence

collection.”4 With the rise of DHS and its control of

homeland security grants, states and localities are

caught between their long-term relationships with

the FBI and their need for new DHS funding.

In the terrorist’s top target of New York City, the

NYPD has assigned more than 100 detectives to the

JTTF, which is more manpower than most, if not

all, other law enforcement intelligence units in the

United States. As NYPD Deputy Commissioner for

Counterterrorism Richard Falkenrath noted: “The

only established information-sharing mechanism

with real coherence and consistent value is the

sharing of usually case-specific, classified

information with the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”5

However, with the creation of DHS in 2003,

another entity with equity in state and local

information sharing and intelligence arrived on the

scene. As expected, DHS moved aggressively to

assert itself in the debate over which federal entity

“owned” state and local information sharing and

intelligence. DHS used the creation of fusion

centers as its primary tool for injecting itself into

state and local information-sharing and

intelligence efforts. Yet its effort is weak at best

according to expert opinion.

Specifically, Deputy Commissioner Falkenrath

stated:

The utility of the Department of Homeland

Security’s information-sharing initiatives

is severely limited by DHS’s apparent

inability to treat various state and local

agencies differently according to their role,

their sophistication, their potential

contribution to the national mission of

combating terrorism, and their size and

power. Consequently, NYPD’s

collaboration with other members of the

Intelligence Community and with foreign

law enforcement and intelligence agencies

is substantially more valuable than is our

collaboration with DHS.6

Prior to the creation of the first DHS fusion center,

a group of federal, local, and state experts warned:

“Information needs to rest in a single place, and

the JTTF provides that forum. They are concerned

that a different or complementary forum might

undermine the JTTFs, provide confusion and

redundancy, and further drain limited resources.”7

DHS ignored this prophetic warning. Because it

controlled billions of dollars in state and local

terrorism grants, it initially inserted language into

the grant guidance in 2005 promoting the “hiring

of contractors/consultants . . . for participation in

information/intelligence sharing groups or

intelligence fusion centers.”8

While some inside DHS argued against an

interagency fight with DOJ and the FBI over state

and local information and intelligence activities

due to the existence and prevalence of JTTFs,

common sense lost out to Potomac Fever. By 2007,

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DHS promoted the full “establishment of a network

of fusion centers to facilitate effective nationwide

homeland security information sharing.”9

As the National Strategy for Information Sharing

has noted, “Many state and major urban areas have

established information fusion centers to

coordinate the gathering, analysis, and

dissemination of law enforcement, homeland

security, public safety, and terrorism

information.”10 More recently, the National

Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding

stated that DHS had:

Established a National Network of Fusion

Centers owned and managed by state and

local entities, which use the Nationwide

Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR)

Initiative (NSI) to share terrorism

information among all levels of

government; and with consistent policies

to protect individual privacy, civil rights,

and civil liberties.11

For a description of the two entities, see Table 1

replicated from the DHS website.

Table 1. Fusion Centers and JTTFs

Fusion Centers Joint Terrorism Task Forces

Managed by state and local authorities, and

include federal, SLTT [state, local, tribal, and

territorial], and private sector partners from

multiple disciplines (including law enforcement,

public safety, fire service, emergency response,

public health, and critical infrastructure)

Managed by FBI, and include federal and

SLTT law enforcement partners

Deal with criminal, public safety, and terrorism

matters across multiple disciplines

Deal primarily with terrorism matters and other

criminal matters related to various aspects of

the counterterrorism mission

Share information across disparate disciplines

on topics such as terrorism, criminal activity, and

public safety

Work with SLTT partners to share critical

infrastructure information with the federal

government

Fusion centers add value to their jurisdictional

customers by providing a state and local context

to threat information and collaborate with the

Federal Government to enhance the national

threat picture

104 JTTFs investigate terrorism cases across

the FBI’s 56 field offices and coordinate their

efforts via the National Joint Terrorism Task

Force, a fusion of local, state, and federal

agencies acting as an integrated force to

combat terrorism on a national and

international scale

Serve as centers of analytic excellence to

assess local implications of threat information to

(1) produce actionable intelligence for

dissemination to law enforcement and homeland

security agencies, and (2) perform services in

response to customers’ needs

Primarily conduct terrorism investigations;

however JTTFs share intelligence with law

enforcement and homeland security agencies,

as appropriate

Source: US Department of Homeland Security, “Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Forces,” July 30,

2015, http://www.dhs.gov/fusion-centers-and-joint-terrorism-task-forces.

http://www.dhs.gov/fusion-centers-and-joint-terrorism-task-forces

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 4

Even though the Government Accountability Office

(GAO) could not give a precise number, the cost to

create and maintain fusion centers is high because

“FEMA estimated that grant funding provided to

fusion centers from 2003 through 2010 ranged

from $289 million to as much as $1.4 billion.”12

Given the ongoing budget crisis, the federal

homeland security funding for fusion centers could

eventually run out. If it does, will states and

localities allocate the funds necessary to keep them

running? JTTFs, as creatures of the FBI, likely will

not lose federal support.

Do Fusion Centers Provide Value?

With all of the funding that has gone to fusion

centers, there also are serious concerns as to

whether those entities add enough valuable data to

the information and intelligence enterprise. The

return on the investment made in fusion centers

has been paltry, at best.

Redundancy Rules the Day. As early audits

discovered, many of the fusion centers receive little

specific or actionable information from DHS.13

Moreover, DHS was slow to provide fusion centers

with useful guidance and training support. Despite

the push for DHS fusion centers, the FBI continued

to strengthen its ties to state and local law

enforcement through the far greater presence of

FBI agents in key jurisdictions, the JTTFs, Field

Intelligence Groups (FIGs), and the enhancement

of multiple information-sharing systems such as

Law Enforcement Online, the Regional

Information Sharing System, National Data

Exchange, FBINet (classified information), and

Sensitive Compartmental Information Operational

Network (top secret) networks.14

This federal scrum over controlling state and local

information sharing and intelligence has led to

redundant efforts from DHS and the FBI, as well as

other resource-wasting initiatives, such as DHS’s

much-maligned unclassified Homeland Security

Information Network and classified Homeland

Security Data Network. Many state and local law

enforcement agencies, already understaffed and

underbudgeted, are forced to make difficult choices

in allocating resources (personnel and money) to

these duplicative federal initiatives.

It is not that just fusion centers and JTTFs have

overlapping and redundant functions. Each of the

FBI’s 56 field offices has a Field Intelligence Group,

an intelligence cell staffed with analysts, linguists,

and special agents. Often, the intelligence products

produced by a fusion center duplicate FIG

products. As a GAO audit discovered, there is

significant “overlap” with FIGs, including “in the

one urban area, the fusion center and FIG both

produced all-crimes analytical products, threat and

risk assessments, and criminal bulletins and

publications, as well as disseminated all-crimes

information, for federal, state, and local

customers.”15

Little Intelligence Comes from Fusion

Centers. Beyond duplicative efforts, fusion

centers have not shown much intelligence value.

An in-depth U.S. Senate investigation noted fusion

centers “often produced irrelevant, useless or

inappropriate intelligence reporting to DHS, and

many produced no intelligence reporting

whatsoever.”16 In fact, the investigation could not

find a single instance when a fusion center

“uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a

contribution such fusion center reporting made to

disrupt an active terrorist plot.”17

In many cases, the fusion centers merely reproduce

information and intelligence already disseminated

by the National Counter Terrorism Center by way

of the FBI. Even DHS officials conceded that “a lot

of [the reporting] was predominantly useless

information” and that fusion centers “were not

capable of effective intelligence-sharing work,

whether it is receiving terrorism-related

information, analyzing it, or sharing it with Federal

officials and others.”18

Despite DHS assertions about the utility of fusion

centers, the investigators were “unable to confirm

that the fusion centers contributions were as

significant as DHS portrayed them; were unique to

the intelligence and analytical work expected of

fusion centers; or would not have occurred absent a

fusion center.”19 Even worse, during the course of

the investigation, they discovered numerous

instances in which the fusion centers made

“significant intelligence errors” that mislead

decision makers, forcing them to issue “prompt

clarifications and apologies.”20

Even DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano expressed

confusion over the two entities when she noted that

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fusions centers were similar to JTTFs, but that

those entities did more than terrorism, despite the

fact that fusion centers were created to fight

terrorism.21 Proponents of fusion centers point to

the broader “all crimes” portfolio to justify having

those entities exist. If state and local governments

continue to believe that fusion centers are critical

for nonterrorism activities, then presumably those

government entities would fund fusion centers that

no longer receive federal funds. Eliminating or

merging the terrorism components of fusion

centers into JTTFs and ending federal support for

fusion centers simply means fusion centers would

need to prove to states or localities they deserve

funding.

Rebuilding a Dangerous Wall. There is

another issue to consider. With the proliferation of

intelligence entities in two different federal

departments, are we risking the de facto rebuilding

of the wall between intelligence and investigation

expanded in 1995, but eliminated after the

September 11 attack?

Specifically, the now infamous memorandum

written by Assistant Attorney General Jamie

Gorelick established a higher wall between

intelligence components and investigation

activities:

We believe that it is prudent to establish a

set of instructions that will clearly separate

the counterintelligence investigation from

the more limited, but continued, criminal

investigations. These procedures, which go

beyond what is legally required, will

prevent any risk of creating an

unwarranted appearance that FISA

[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] is

being used to avoid procedural safeguards

which would apply in a criminal

investigation.22

This higher wall contributed to the intelligence

failure leading up to the September 11 attack. As

noted in the Wall Street Journal, Attorney General

John Ashcroft testified:

In the days before September 11, the wall

specifically impeded the investigation into

Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Midhar and

Nawaf al-Hazmi. After the FBI arrested

Moussaoui, agents became suspicious of

his interest in commercial aircraft and

sought approval for a criminal warrant to

search his computer. The warrant was

rejected because FBI officials feared

breaching the wall.

When the CIA finally told the FBI that al-

Midhar and al-Hazmi were in the country

in late August, agents in New York

searched for the suspects. But because of

the wall, FBI headquarters refused to

allow criminal investigators who knew the

most about the most recent al Qaeda

attack to join the hunt for the suspected

terrorists.

At that time, a frustrated FBI investigator

wrote headquarters, quote, “Whatever has

happened to this—someday someone will

die—and wall or not—the public will not

understand why we were not more

effective and throwing every resource we

had at certain ‘problems.’”23

The lesson we should have learned from this tragic

episode is that we can ill afford for key information

or intelligence to reside in siloed entities, thereby

increasing the risk it will not be combined with

other information or intelligence to give our law

enforcement personnel the fullest picture possible.

The mere existence of competing entities across

America makes this risk a real possibility.

Time to Eliminate Duplication and Fragmentation

The federal government should eliminate the

multiheaded federal lead on state and local

counterterrorism by designating the FBI as the lead

agency for state and local counterterrorism efforts.

Under the FBI lead, the DHS fusion centers, given

their limited value and high cost, should be

consolidated into the more established and

numerous JTTFs.24 In fact, nearly two dozen fusion

centers are already collocated with the FBI.

From a resource allocation standpoint, a combined

entity under the JTTF will ensure that precious

resources are allocated more efficiently, rather

than increase the demand for analysts, especially in

places where little to no terrorist activities occur or

are unlikely. Many fusion centers lack the trained

analysts to do their work, and state and local

participants have reported difficulties in staffing

fusion centers.25 State and local officials “found the

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 6

multiple systems or heavy volume of often

redundant information a challenge to manage.”26

With the requirement for cameras and other IT for

patrol officers post-Ferguson, the budgetary

constraints on local law enforcement will get

worse. When asked, states commented that they

wanted the FBI to take a greater role in the fusion

centers.27 Federal entities also face personnel

constraints in assigning staff to both JTTFs and

fusion centers.

The JTTFs are by no means perfect. Too often, the

FBI’s culture inhibits sharing information and

intelligence with local law enforcement. In some

cases, the FBI uses the forum to federalize

investigations from local law enforcement without

much discussion on whether doing so makes sense.

This approach makes little sense. More

problematic, federalizing leads and cutting out

local law enforcement can undermine years of

community policing efforts. When so much of

America’s ability to stop a terrorist attack rests on

its ability to penetrate murky and nebulous

community-based entities, we can ill afford to

ignore the strides made thus far.

Sources: US Government Accountability Office, “Information Sharing: Agencies Could Better Coordinate to Reduce Overlap in Field-Based Activities,” April 2013, p. 14, Figure 1, http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/653527.pdf; National Fusion Center Association, “Fusion Centers,” https://nfcausa.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/117/MenuGroup/Public+Home.htm; and US Department of Justice, “The Department of Justice’s Terrorism Task Forces,” June 2005, p. 20, Figure 2, https://oig.justice. gov/reports/plus/e0507/final.pdf.

http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/653527.pdf

https://nfcausa.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/117/MenuGroup/Public+Home.htm

https://oig.justice.gov/reports/plus/e0507/final.pdf

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Going forward, the FBI should develop the JTTFs

into truly joint ventures where state and local law

enforcement sit as partners with their federal

counterparts. Ideally, the JTTF should be a place

where representatives from federal, state, and local

law enforcement sit down, evaluate leads, share

and review all intelligence, debate pros and cons of

proposed courses of action, and agree on a plan of

action. An integral part of the discussion should

center on which level of authority makes the most

sense to assume leadership: local law enforcement

sometimes possesses greater flexibility and power.

In this merged model, DHS would still remain

involved with domestic counterterrorism activities

via several connections. First, DHS should have its

own intelligence analysts as members of the JTTF.

Next, several DHS components are already JTTF

participants, including U.S. Immigration and

Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and

Border Protection. Finally, DHS possesses several

elements that serve as pipelines of potential

intelligence (e.g., airport screening operations,

biological and chemical detection assets, and visa

processes).

Conclusion

As we have seen over the past 15 years, our

domestic intelligence entities have a difficult job.

With multiple federal, state, and local law

enforcement entities already involved in keeping us

safe, sharing information and intelligence poses a

large enough challenge. Increasing that challenge

with separate and distinct information and

intelligence-sharing entities across the United

States that are overseen by two different federal

departments is more than just bad policy. It easily

could result in failures that prevent law

enforcement from stopping the next terrorist

attack.

The rise of Daesh (the Islamic State) and its

emphasis on lone-wolf and small-group attacks

make our current siloed system inherently

dangerous, inefficient, and costly. After San

Bernardino, it is clear that the homeland is still in

the crossfire. Bringing all the key players together

under one roof should increase cooperation, lower

costs, reduce inefficiency, and enhance

effectiveness.

About the Author

Matt A. Mayer is a visiting fellow in homeland

security studies at AEI. He is a former senior

official at the US Department of Homeland

Security and author of Homeland Security and

Federalism: Protecting America from Outside the

Beltway (Praeger, 2009).

Notes

1. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Protecting

America Against Terrorist Attack: A Closer Look at

the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, 2004.

2. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004), 81–82.

3. White House, “National Strategy for Information

Sharing,” October 2007, 8, https://www.fas.org/sgp/

library/infoshare.pdf.

4. David L. Carter, Law Enforcement Intelligence: A

Guide for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement

Agencies, US Department of Justice, Office of

Community Oriented Policing Services, 2004, 16.

5. Richard A. Falkenrath, prepared statement before

the Committee on Homeland Security and

Governmental Affairs, US Senate, September 12,

2006, http://www.investigativeproject.org/

documents/testimony/259.pdf.

6. Ibid.

7. Gerald R. Murphy and Martha R. Plotkin, Protecting Your Community from Terrorism: Strategies for Local Law Enforcement, vol. 1, Local- Federal Partnerships (Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, March 2003), 33, http://www.policeforum.org/assets/docs/Free_Onlin e_Documents/Terrorism/community%20policing%2 0and%20terrorism%20vol.%201%202004.pdf.

8. US Department of Homeland Security, Fiscal Year

2005 Homeland Security Grant Program: Program

Guidelines and Application Kit, 2004, 27,

https://www.fema.gov/pdf/government/grant/hsgp/f

y05_hsgp_guidance.pdf.

9. US Department of Homeland Security, FY 2007

Homeland Security Grant Program: Supplemental

Resource—Fusion Capability Planning Tool, 2007, 1.

https://www.fas.org/sgp/library/infoshare.pdf

http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/testimony/259.pdf

http://www.policeforum.org/assets/docs/Free_Online_Documents/Terrorism/community%20policing%20and%20terrorism%20vol.%201%202004.pdf

https://www.fema.gov/pdf/government/grant/hsgp/fy05_hsgp_guidance.pdf

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 8

10. White House, “National Strategy for Information

Sharing,” October 2007, 8, https://www.fas.org/sgp/

library/infoshare.pdf.

11. White House, “National Strategy for Information

Sharing and Safeguarding,” December 2012, 4,

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs

/2012sharingstrategy_1.pdf.

12. US Government Accountability Office, “Information Sharing: DHS Is Assessing Fusion Center Capabilities and Results, but Needs to More Accurately Account for Federal Funding Provided to Centers,” November 2014, 39, http://gao.gov/assets/ 670/666760.pdf.

13. Siobhan Gorman, “Intelligence Sharing Still

Lacking,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2008,

A12.

14. The FBI launched the Law Enforcement Online

system, which has over 40,000 users, in 1995 and the

Regional Information Sharing System, which links

more than 7,000 law enforcement entities, in 1974.

See Stephan A. Loyka, Donald A. Faggiani, and

Clifford Karchmer, Protecting Your Community from

Terrorism: The Strategies for Local Law

Enforcement Series, vol. 4, The Production and

Sharing of Intelligence (Washington, DC: Police

Executive Research Forum, 2005), 37–38,

http://www.policeforum.org/assets/docs/Free_Onlin

e_Documents/Terrorism/community%20policing%2

0and%20terrorism%20vol.%204%202004.pdf.

15. US Government Accountability Office,

“Information Sharing: Agencies Could Better

Coordinate to Reduce Overlap in Field-Based

Activities,” April 2013, 20, http://www.gao.gov/

assets/660/653527.pdf.

16. US Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and

Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on

Investigations, Federal Support for and Involvement

in State and Local Fusion Centers, October 3, 2012,

2–3, http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/

report_federal-support-for-and-involvement-in-state-

and-local-fusions-centers.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., 8, 9, 98, and 101.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid., 16–17.

22. Jamie S. Gorelick, “Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations,” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, 1995, 2, http://www. justice.gov/sites/default/files/ag/legacy/2004/04/14 /1995_gorelick_memo.pdf.

23. Editorial, “Gorelick’s Wall,” Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2004, http://www.wsj.com/articles/ SB108198447949083135.

24. Some critics of this consolidation will argue that

JTTFs and fusion centers are not competitive entities,

but rather complementary efforts. Yet even experts in

the field note that the JTTF is an example of a fusion

center, so either the critics are wrong or law

enforcement experts at all levels of government are

confused. See Loyka et al., Protecting Your

Community from Terrorism, 38.

25. US Government Accountability Office, Homeland

Security: Federal Efforts Are Helping to Alleviate

Some Challenges Encountered by State and Local