Collaboration and Information Sharing Within HSINT

Collaboration and Information Sharing Within HSINT
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Collaboration and Information Sharing Within HSINT
Introduction
The 9/11 attack will forever remain fresh in the minds of many Americans. This attack on the World Trade Center in New York brought about changes that have influenced the state of security intelligence in the U.S. for the past two decades. The attack led to a direct and specific focus on how intelligence on security was collected, analyzed, shared, and acted upon at every level in the country. Before the 9/11 attack, the country had two distinct levels of intelligence. These included domestic intelligence, which mainly included intelligence that was collected by the police and was considered local or applicable within the country (Randol, 2009). Randol continues to note that there was also foreign intelligence, which mainly included all intelligence that was collected outside of the country. However, after the 9/11 attack, it became clear that there was a need to merge the two because the information collected outside or within the U.S. proved crucial to the maintenance of security in the country. The attack and others, like the Boston marathon attack, showed that there was a need to combine the efforts of all intelligence agencies to ensure security in the U.S. is ensured. As Randol (2009) notes, the importance of aspects of collaboration and information sharing increased immensely after 9/11 as homeland security intelligence (HSINT) became increasingly connected at all levels. Currently, every piece of information collected at any level of government is taken with a touch of seriousness and urgency that was not there before. As Bjelopera (2011) indicates, “information acquired for one purpose, or under one set of authorities might provide unique insights when combined, in accordance with applicable law, with seemingly unrelated information from other sources.” The statement above brings about the importance with which every piece of intelligence is taken, and also reveals how the ideals of collaboration and information within HSINT lead to an intertwined web of intelligence sharing. Provided herein is a discussion of the depth of collaboration and information sharing within HSINT and the changes, transitions, and challenges to the same. Further, this paper will also offer recommendations on how information sharing will be enhanced to help prevent future terrorist attacks.
Intelligence Collection Disciplines
As already indicated, intelligence collection today has been subdivided into different sections and involves everyone in the U.S. Security decisions that concern the national security of the entire country are guided or influenced by the information share is collected and shared at all levels of governance. However, the collection disciplines happen to be quite a number, and these basically mean the levels of intelligence that is collected within the U.S. There are two major disciplines that showcase the intelligence collection disciplines. These two include the technical and non-technical. Examples of technical means include imagery intelligence or IMINT, signals intelligence or SIGINT, and measurement and signatures intelligence or MASINT...