If a person went on a safari in Africa and the tour guide stated, “when the jackal tries to take the lion’s babies, the lion will kill the jackal” what would most people say? “Duh, really, what else is new?”
Unfortunately, similar information is passed daily amongst fusion centers all across the country. Replace the lion with the drug cartels. Replace the babies with drugs, and replace the jackal with virtually every law enforcement organization inside the United States.
Yes, drug cartels are willing to kill local, state, and federal law enforcement or anyone for that matter to protect its baby–drugs. This is nothing new. In fact, this has been known for decades. So why are reports coming out from fusion centers stating the obvious time and time again?
Scenario one: The majority of fusion centers inside the U.S. aren’t really fusion centers; rather, they are buildings that consist of multiple law enforcement organizations working under the same roof. The physical structure is a misnomer in and of itself. If data isn’t “fused” then the location isn’t truly serving as a “fusion center” rather just a hub for multiple entities to work out of. The persons working in these centers often operate in their own little offices rarely passing any significant information and when they do pass information of any true value, they rarely discuss the gaps of intelligence needed for further collection to make a complete intelligence product. Therefore, the information never truly becomes a “fused” multidimensional cognitively produced product.
Scenario two: A great majority of analysts working inside state level fusion centers are straight out of college with little if any operational collection experience. This causes an issue in and of itself. They lack the understanding of what human collectors have to go through to obtain vetted sourced data. They also fail in understanding the different approaches needed when asking further collection needs amongst the collectors such as a proper “Requests for Information,” better known as RFI’s. And due to their age and lack of experience, there is an intimidation factor amongst analysts when dealing with seasoned collectors. All of this, whether anyone is willing to agree or disagree is a passive and at times active workforce bullying dilemma.
Scenario three: Simply put, people are lazy.
Solution: Fusion centers can work. In fact, since the implementation of true multidiscipline fusion centers in Afghanistan, a significant rise in kill or capture of High Value Targets (HVT’s) has resulted. The key to a good fusion center is having seasoned professionals from an array of disciplines operate within. These professionals should have collection experiences as well as understand proper methods in RFI requests. Mutual trust, respect, and coordination must exist between analysts and collectors. And, to stress again, multidiscipline functions must be present.
Simply through observing and speaking to numerous individuals operating in fusion centers across America, it is known that the majority are missing key ingredients. They lack biomedical/biosecurity, civil engineers, public affairs officers, medical, fire, transportation specialists, and communications specialists. And whether formally or informally trained, these professionals do know how to analyze data very well.
A fusion center is not a law enforcement owned and operated operation center; they are owned by the state. Law enforcement organizations already have operation centers and command posts established all across the nation. A real fusion center needs to be a multidisciplined entity; one consisting of professionally seasoned operatives who fully understand collection and analysis as well as understand that when a gap of information exists, a responsibility to present a “Request for Information” (RFI) becomes prevalent.
Those willing to sacrifice their own lives for the safety of others deserve better tools. The greatest tool any operative needs comes from intelligence. Some of the most incredible intelligence fighting the current wars abroad comes from legitimate, real, fusion centers. The last thing any operative deserves is a report telling them that the lion will do anything to kill a jackal if the jackal tries to take one of the lion’s babies. Sadly, these types of reports have been disseminated too often.