Las Vegas Review Journal: A fusion of crime fighters
The Las Vegas Review Journal has an interesting story about the local fusion center. (Fusion centers are state and local programs to gather domestic intelligence. Fusion centers have raised privacy and civil liberties questions, in part because of the lack of information about them — about who is in charge of what and what exactly is happening in these fusion centers. Read more here.)
When a tip came in recently about a threat of violence at a local high school football game, a Clark County School District police officer helped plan a response. When a Colorado man was arrested this fall on terrorism charges, a Department of Homeland Security analyst probed whether the suspect had Las Vegas ties.
Though the two cases could not be more different, the officials who worked them can be found in the same cubicle-filled room at the Southern Nevada Counterterrorism Center.
Open for more than two years now, the Las Vegas “fusion” center is battling both terrorism and street crime, a dual mission that has affected how local and federal law enforcement agents view each other and their jobs.
The fusion center concept, which was developed by the federal government after the 9/11 attacks, is grounded in the idea that information flow between police agencies is key to stopping terrorism. But in Las Vegas and elsewhere, the concept has evolved to include a broader “all crimes, all hazards” approach. [...]
Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said mixing anti-terrorism with regular crime fighting is problematic.
“They say they need extraordinary measures because of terrorism, but as soon as they get them, they apply it to ordinary situations,” he said. “I think it weakens their argument that they needed extraordinary measures for terrorism.”
Since 2004, the Homeland Security Department has granted hundreds of millions of dollars to establish and operate fusion centers across the nation. About $15 million of that has come to Nevada, which boasts three of the nation’s 72 centers. A facility in Reno examines threats and crime trends in Northern Nevada, and a center in Carson City focuses on rural parts of the state.
Possibly related posts: