Strengthening the Value of the National Network of Fusion Centers by Leveraging Specialization: Defining "Centers of Analytical Excellence"
AUTHOR:
Justin Lewis Abold
Dr. Justin Lewis Abold is assistant to the industry director, Global High Wealth Industry, Large Business and International Division, Internal Revenue Service. His last assignment before joining the Internal Revenue Service was as a National Defense Intelligence College research fellow focused on researching state and local fusion centers. He has a master’s degree in Strategic Intelligence from the National Defense Intelligence College and a PhD in Criminology from Oxford University, United Kingdom.
AUTHOR:
Ray Guidetti
Ray Guidetti is a captain with the New Jersey State Police and recently completed a twelve-month fellowship with the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Intelligence and Analysis. He is currently assigned to the New Jersey Regional Operations Intelligence Center as the deputy director. Captain Guidetti holds a master’s degree in National Security, Homeland Defense and Security, from the Naval Postgraduate School.
AUTHOR:
Douglas Keyer
Douglas Keyer currently serves as the director of the New York State Intelligence Center where he is responsible for commanding the day-to-day operations. He is also the vice-president of the National Fusion Center Association, a non-profit organization started to ensure the fusion centers had a collective voice with federal agency partners. At the state level, he sits on the New York State Homeland Security Strategy Work Group and also chairs the “Secure the Cities” Intelligence Committee.
ABSTRACT:
This article reports on the main findings of a project sponsored by the National Fusion Center Association to more precisely define the term "Centers of Analytic Excellence." Secretary Janet Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security previously used this term to focus public attention on the analytical component of the fusion process. Drawing upon the input of a select group of federal, state, and local intelligence expert professionals through the application of the Delphi Method, the article proposes the (re)definition of the term “Centers of Analytical Excellence” to mean a validation of a fusion center’s demonstrated excellence in a particular subject area of analytical methodology. This is a significant departure from the sense in which this term has been used previously and provides a next state for individual fusion centers that aspire to share their analytic competencies across a national network. This article also discusses a number of additional perspectives regarding the state of analysis in fusion centers as raised by the experts consulted in the project.
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SUGGESTED CITATION:Abold, Justin Lewis, Ray Guidetti, and Douglas Keyer. “Strengthening the Value of the National Network of Fusion Centers by Leveraging Specialization: Defining "Centers of Analytical Excellence".”
Homeland Security Affairs 8, Article 7 (June 2012)
http://www.hsaj.org/?article=8.1.7
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COMMENTS
The challenge of building a fusion network has been met; the un-met challenge is getting the resulting actionable intelligence or even situational awareness information "into the hands" of the cop on the beat. This is not a new or indomitable problem.
For the
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