In its 2004 report, The 9/11 Commission put forward five recommendations to guard against future attacks. One of those major recommendations is:

"unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their knowledge in a network-based information-sharing system that transcends traditional government boundaries"

This community is dedicated to advancing fusion and emergency operation center capabilities to access, synthesize and share useful information for the purpose of protecting public safety. The goal is to encourage exchange of ideas and know how between law enforcement, first responders, EOC operators, critical infrastructure owner/operators and other homeland security communities of interest.

Contents 1 Getting Started 1.1 Define Vision 1.2 Select & Prepare Facility 1.3 Define Products, Organization and Processes 1.4 Deploy Intelligence Management Tools 1.5 Get Connected 2 Information Sharing Projects 3 Resources 4 See Also

Getting Started

Most states have launched fusion centers. While there is no single best approach, all benefit from sharing knowledge gained and lessons learned in the many aspects of standing up and conducting fusion. Here is a 100,000-foot view of steps and challenges of forming and operating a fusion center.

Define Vision

• Review Congressional Research Service (CRS) report and recommendations on Fusion Centers
• Research Fusion Center guidelines related to information sharing, operations, privacy protection and more published by federal, state and local agencies
• Organize participants and form the fusion center entity

Select & Prepare Facility

• Physical Security Standards for SCIF (July 1994)
• DCID 1/21 Quick Reference SCIF Construction Guide

Define Products, Organization and Processes

• Specify products and services
• Create organization structure and assign responsibilities
• Develop process framework to produce fusion products and services

Deploy Intelligence Management Tools

• Develop a technology strategy for second generation Fusion Centers that enables information sharing
• Work with subject matter experts in each Emergency Support Function (ESF) area to define an information model for your data and map it to National Information Exchange Model standards
• Stand up a collaborative intelligence database

Get Connected

• Connect to official information sources
• Start monitoring open source news feeds and blogs

Information Sharing Projects

• CapStat interoperability project - Program overview and architecture of the distributed Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) designed to connect jurisdictions and emergency centers in our Nation's capital

Resources

• White paper: Technology strategy for second generation Fusion Centers
• Fusion center glossary

See Also

• Department of Justice: Fusion Centers and Intelligence Sharing
• National Strategy for Information Sharing (NSIS) 2007
• Centers Tap Into Personal Databases - by Robert O'Harrow Jr., The Washington Post
• Lawmaker to DHS: Step it up with fusion centers - by Ben Bain, Federal Computer Week
• Effective Counterterrorism and the Limited Role of Predictive Data Mining - by Jeff Jonas and Jim Harper
• What's Wrong With Fusion Centers - The ACLU expresses concerns over Fusion Centers and potential threats to privacy.