Local Law Enforcement Involvement in Joint Terrorism Task Forces - Research Paper Example

Local Law Enforcement Involvement in Joint Terrorism Task Forces Abstract Joint Terrorism Task Force is a partnership of various federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The primary objective of this Joint Terrorism Task Force is to effectively meet the threat of terrorism by utilizing the collective knowledge, expertise and resources of all the law enforcement agencies involved. The three main aspects of effectively handling terrorism are collecting intelligence about possible terrorist activity, hardening targets, and being ready to respond in the event of an attack. Being the officials who are in close contact with local community, local law enforcement officers are more capable of effectively gathering information and observing suspicious activities and individuals on a regular basis. This helps avoid distrust, dislike and fear, especially in migrant communities. Also, when there is an attack, local law enforcement will be the first responders, and their skill and knowledge are vital in controlling damages to life and property. Introduction Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) is a partnership among various US law enforcement agencies ranging from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, US Secret Service, state and local law enforcement agencies, and various specialized agencies like railroad police. These JTTFs act as ‘one-stop’ centers where all information regarding terrorist activities is stored. Thus, JTTFs help pool talents, skills and knowledge from all spheres of law enforcement from local to federal agencies. Admittedly, local law enforcement has a vital role to play in the functioning of JTTFs. A look into Literature Based on the POP Conference dated 2 November 2009, Ronald V. Clarke of Rutgers University and Graeme R. Newman of University at Albany point out that all terrorism is local in nature. It is described that national security agencies cannot work alone in stopping future attacks, and hence, it is necessary to develop partnerships with local police as they can play a crucial role in terrorism prevention. An anecdote comes from CIA director James Woolsey’s testimony to Congress in 2004. The expert opines that the role of local police in Joint Terrorism Task Force cannot be negated because local police establishments enjoy more confidence of citizens, and hence the public is more likely to cooperate with them than with any other governmental officials. In addition, it is pointed out that only local police knows how to protect citizens’ liberties and acquire threads in a safe way. In fact, understanding the Three Bases of Counter-terrorism will help understand the important role of local police in Joint Terrorism Task Force. These three bases are collecting intelligence about possible terrorist activity, hardening targets, and being ready to respond in the event of an attack. It is pointed out by Clarke and Newman (2009) that public vigilance, video cameras, behavioral profiling, and intelligence-led policing all have their own limits. So, the primary source of intelligence in Joint Terrorism Task Force should be community policing. Admittedly, there are a large number of benefits associated with the use of community police for collecting intelligence. The first one is that when national agencies like the Joint Terrorism Task Force start collecting information without the help of local law enforcement, they often end up compiling a very long list of suspects which often proves useless. However, community policing helps avoid such lists that are of lesser value. Instead, as Clarke and Newman (2009) commented, community policing allows close observation of people before profiling them as suspects (pp.2-3). Secondly, without the aid of local police, it will be a costly task for national agencies to do surveillance over suspects and places. In addition are the legal and political hurdles associated with profiling and wiretapping. Also, such secret operations often result in community unrest and distrust. Here, as Neyroud (2007, pp.5-8) points out, local police officers are of an important role because they have an everyday presence in the communities that they are sworn to protect. They regularly walk the beat and communicate regularly with the local residents and business owners. So, they are more likely to notice even subtle changes in the neighborhoods they patrol. Thus, in the opinion of Neyroud (2007, p.5-8), they have more chances of knowing good and bad characters in the locality, thus developing a good network of informants. Similarly, Edward J. Tully and Willoughby write about the role of local and state police agencies in terrorism prevention. The scholars accept the fact that in the United States, the federal law enforcement and national security agencies have assumed a major role in anti-terrorism activities. These agencies are responsible for collecting information from both within and abroad. However, there are many areas where the local governments can play an important role in handling terrorism. Some of them are emergency responses in case of attack, identifying critical target facilities, supplying regional manpower to regional task forces, acquiring equipment and communications technology for first responder use, and ensuring medical assistance and biological agent neutralization. Another point is the responsibility to control immediate facility damage. Here, the scholars describe the fact that the federal agencies often fail to acknowledge capabilities of such local agencies and respect them. According to Tully and Willoughby (2002), even though the state police have managed to prevent three terrorist attacks in the recent past, they were not given any information about the presence of Al-Qaeda members before 9/11. Thus, the scholars reveal the fact that the federal agencies fail to ensure adequate input to the local law enforcement agencies that will help in looking for and identifying useful threads in terrorism prevention. Clarke and Newman write about the role of police in the prevention of terrorism. According to them, the role of local police in anti-terrorism activities is to collect intelligence about possible terrorist activity, ensure the protection of vulnerable targets, and be prepared to respond when there is an attack. Very similar to the opinion of Neyroud, the scholars are of the opinion that local police can play a vital role in collecting valuable information and earning trust as they have the opportunity to talk informally with the key members of each community on a regular basis. In the opinion of Clarke and Newman (2007), community policing has beat police officers assigned to all neighborhoods. So, they get a chance to spend considerable amount of time in the community, to get to know residents and business owners there, and to talk about local problems and troublesome individuals. That means, they also become aware about any suspicious activity or individual in the locality (pp. 9-20). Another important area the scholars point out is the communication with immigrant communities. As it is pointed out, Al-Qaeda terrorists often find residence in immigrant communities that match their ethnic and national backgrounds. Thus, lack of surveillance in the immigrant communities will pose a serious threat to the safety of the nation. Thus, terrorism prevention activities should pay special attention to immigrant communities, but using too much of force or legality will only help worsen the problem. In such a very sensitive situation, the only way out is the effective use of community policing that provides reassurance to the immigrants. This community policing gives a safer way to monitor all the individuals in the community without any dislike or disdain from community members, ensuring maximum possible communication with the community members, and encouraging them to share any information on possible terrorist activities by giving the assurance that they will not be targeted for giving such information. In fact, the philosophy of community policing has an important role in preparing to face possible terrorist attacks and also in responding to the fear they create. The very first philosophy of community policing that has value in terrorism prevention is that of organizational change. Admittedly, community police has a flat organizational structure where the officers at the lowest level enjoy a considerable amount of decision-making authority. Admittedly, it is these local law enforcement officers who come into contact with all the members of the community where the terrorists often live. By giving these local law enforcement officers more autonomy and decision-making power, they will find it easy to pursue leads on suspected terrorist activities. In addition, this feeling of decision-making authority and responsibility will make the officers respond quickly and decisively to any event. Also, as each officer is only concerned about a particular geographic area, the officer will, in time, develop a lot of knowledge about each resident in that area. This is of utmost importance in effectively preventing terrorism. This knowledge of an area and its residents along with the knowledge of vulnerable targets like dams, important installations, and public gatherings will help in developing effective terrorism prevention strategies. The next major philosophy of community policing that is helpful in handling terrorism is the ideology of problem solving. The existing knowledge in the local police officers about potential terrorist targets can be utilized to develop detailed risk management and crisis plans. Such targets will include dams, electric grids, chemical warehouses, and large-scale public gatherings. That means, by ensuring proper communication between Joint Terrorism Task Force and local police, it is possible to develop such plans and refine them on a regular basis according to the day to day developments in each community without huge expenditure of time and resources. Another point of benefit is the philosophy of external partnerships as promoted by community policing. In fact, the threat of terrorism provides a golden opportunity for law enforcement agencies to develop trustworthy partnerships with citizens and other social organizations. Admittedly, community policing allows establishing and expanding partnerships with the goal to develop model crisis plans. These plans, in fact, take into account the concerns of all stakeholders ranging from local people, police, and the government. Thus, utilizing the community policing strategy will be highly beneficial for the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Admittedly, it is this understanding of the role of local law enforcement agencies that resulted in the creation of Fusion Centers. These Fusion Centers are the places where the information at the local level is gathered, analysed, and shared with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners. These Fusion Centers which are operated by state and local entities serve both local and federal security needs. These Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Forces collaborate in order to analyze and share intelligence. While the Fusion Centers provide the JTTF with leads for investigation, and the JTTF provides the Fusion Centers necessary inputs regarding the points to be taken into account in local monitoring. This collaboration has been very useful in terrorism prevention. To illustrate, on 1 May 2010, when Faisal Shahzad attempted to bomb the Times Square, the Florida Fusion Center managed to discover the vital information that Faisal was associated with two more people who lived in that territory. Thus, Fusion Centers aid the JTTF by gathering information through the collective knowledge, expertise, and information from the local law enforcement and homeland security agencies. In order to achieve this purpose, FBI provides necessary clearances and skills to the Fusion Center staff so that appropriate analytic and investigative activities are undertaken when necessary. The guidelines Appendix 1- Establishing a National Integrated Network of State and Major Urban Area Fusion Centers points out the role of federal, state, local and tribal governments in establishing Fusion Centers (The White House, n.d). It is pointed out that these Fusion Centers will focus on the receipt and sharing of terrorism information in the state and local environment. These Fusion Centers support critical counterterrorism, homeland security, and homeland defense-related activities which require mechanisms to contribute information of value to federal terrorism risk assessments. In addition, Fusion Centers also do regional and topical risk assessments, other processes as communicated by the federal agency, situational awareness reports, and analytical reports regarding geographically relevant incidents or specific threats. Regarding the reporting of suspicious activities and incidents, the guidelines point out that, local law enforcement agencies should complete a risk assessment including threat, vulnerability, and consequences. Also, they are responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining a way of effective communication of priorities between local gatherers and national entities. In addition, they should ensure proper processing of Suspicious Incident Reports, and Suspicious Activities Reports. Adding to this emphasis on local partners’ role in preventing terrorism is the August 2011 White House release Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States. It is pointed out in the release that the nation wants to strengthen local communities because such local communities are often the breeding grounds of terrorism. As a part of the strategy, law enforcement agencies at the local level will develop relationships with communities through continuous engagement. It is rightly identified by the government that misinformation on terror can create unnecessary tension. Thus, evidently, the guidelines almost entirely concentrate on local level prevention, and thus, local law enforcement gets more priority than the national agencies (President of the United States, 2011). However, the element of conflict in the relation between JTTF and local law enforcement agencies cannot be neglected. Admittedly, the local law enforcement agencies possess very limited resources, leading to a caste system. Another serious issue is the one regarding security clearances. This takes place when the members of the task force try to get top secret information that requires security clearance. Issuance of such information takes nearly 6 months to 1 year, and thus, accessing information becomes a tough task. Summary of findings Proper use of local law enforcement in Joint Terrorism Task Force will help fight terrorism more effectively. This is so because local law enforcement has the capability and infrastructure to reach the lowest sections of community and observe the day to day issues there. This involves talking to community members on a regularly basis, identifying the problems there, identifying the troublemakers, identifying the presence of suspicious elements or movements, identifying the presence of any kind of extremist ideologies, mitigating people’s fear of terrorism, and effectively utilizing the fear of terrorism to make people divulge important information to the law enforcement agencies. As community polices are very familiar and friendly, people will only be happy to cooperate, and this kind of a relationship and successful observation are impossible for federal agencies. Also, the use of community police considerably reduces the chances of wrongly suspecting and profiling people, thus reducing the chances of unrest and fear in the society. In addition, the huge expenditure involved in conducting secret operations and observations is considerably reduced. Lastly, the deep knowledge of local law enforcement officers about the possible terrorist targets in the locality can be utilized to develop effective prevention strategies. Conclusion In total, it becomes evident that local law enforcement agencies have an important role to play in Joint Terrorism Task Force partnership. Being the officials who are in close contact with local community, local law enforcement officers are more capable of effectively gathering information and observing suspicious activities and individuals on a regular basis. In addition, as they possess knowledge about various vulnerable targets in every community, that knowledge can be used to develop preventive plans. Also, in the case of an attack, they are the first responders, and even after the attack, their communication with the community has an important role in reducing fear and unrest. References Clarke, R. V & Newman, G. R. (2009). All terrorism is local. POP Conference, 1-36. Retrieved from http://www.popcenter.org/conference/conferencepapers/2009/all_terrorism_is_local.pdf Clarke, R. V & Newman, G. R. (2007). Police and the prevention of terrorism. Oxford Journals, 1(1), 9-20. Neyroud, P. (2007). Policing terrorism. Oxford Journals, 1(1), 5-8. President of the United States. (2011). Empowering local partners to prevent violent extremism in the United States, 1-8. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/empowering_local_partners.pdf Tully, E. J & Willoughby, E. L. (2002). Terrorism: The role of local and state police agencies. National Executive Institute Associates, Major Cities Chiefs Association and Major Country Sheriff’s Association. Retrieved from http://www.neiassociates.org/state-local.htm The White House. (n.d). Roles and responsibilities of federal, state, local, and tribal authorities. 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