Question

Is the Senates criticism of state and local fusion centers deserved? FULLY EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER.

Answer 1

The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittees' criticism had focused mainly on three areas, uneven intelligence quality, a lack of contributing factors toward counterterrorism, and financial issues (Oliver, Marion & Hill, 2015). The quality of intelligence information that was being received and pushed out by the fusion centers was considered subpar and lacked significant information or was old information that was unreliable to what would be requested (Smith, 2012). Along with reports being tardy to requesters, there would be duplication of products that would result in time loss and failing of work performance in the centers. Another criticism was the fact that centers were not contributing toward counterterrorism operations. This was because the center's reports were again tardy to the requester and that the information in many reports was not used due to insufficient information. The last criticism factored around centers not being able to estimate proper budgets and or estimate how much money centers were spending. Along with that centers had been criticized for spending unnecessary funds on items such as 55 flat-screen televisions with a cost of $75,000 and spending $64,000 on televisions and computer monitors at a center in San Diego (Smith, 2012).

This subcommittee report criticizes these fusion centers for reasons in which we would hope they would be doing more of a professional job by creating reports that are useful and accurate, provide reports in a timely manner, and be good stewards of government funds. It’s a deserving criticized report that exposed many issues that had no checks or balances for those fusion centers.

References: Oliver, W. M., Marion, N. E., & Hill, J. B. (2015). Introduction to homeland security: policy, organization, and administration. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.Smith, J.R. (2012). Senate Report Says National Intelligence Fusion Centers Have Been Useless. Retrieved from -centers-have-been-useless