Fusion Centers are designed to interpret, analyze, and gather, and share terrorist threat-related information (Department of Homeland Security, 2013). From my personal experience, a lot of first responders either do not know about fusion centers or do not know how to utilize fusion centers. Further, the information communicated from the fusion centers sometimes takes days to be discriminated to other agencies, although most information needs to be validated which takes time as well. From personal experience, I know of at least two cases where a Government Agency will call up to two weeks after a traffic stop asking questions about a person that was stopped for a traffic violation that was under suspicion. I both cases the person did not pose …show more content…
The validated information and distributed to the proper agencies are most likely the key to prevention. It is also important for all agencies involved to have access to the information. Also, according to research conducted by Congressional Research Service, fusion centers are evolving toward all crimes and hazards, not just terrorist activity (Masse, O’Neil, &Rollins, 2007). If the Federal Government has the information about the possibility of a terrorist attack in a particular area and does not share the information with local agencies, would be a failure to the public. Consequently, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Michael Curtis Reynolds was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to Al Qaeda and other related charges (Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2013). His plans were foiled before he could provide support because of online information obtained. The more credible information that can be legally and ethically obtained, analyzed for validity, and disseminated to the proper agencies the