Terrorism Liaison Officer

Last updated

A Terrorism Liaison Officer (TLO) is a public citizen in the United States of America who has been trained to report suspicious activity that may be encountered during the course of his or her normal occupation as part of the United States' War on Terror. Although the TLO program was designed prior to September 11, 2001, the 9/11 attacks on the United States were a catalyst for the program's implementation. [1] In 2002, the first pilot program for Terrorism Liaison Officers was launched in California. The program linked local law enforcement to the state's fusion centers and Office of Homeland Security. [2] By 2008, hundreds of people had been trained and dispatched in multiple states, [3] [4] and by 2014, California alone had more than 14,000 TLOs. [1] While some of these individuals are members of local law enforcement agencies, others such as paramedics, utility workers, and railroad employees have also been recruited into the program. [3] [4] TLOs have been used to monitor criminal activity associated with Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protests and activists. [5] [6]

Contents

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Department of Homeland Security</span> United States federal department

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terrorism, border security, immigration and customs, cyber security, and disaster prevention and management.

Operation TIPS, where the last part is an acronym for the Terrorism Information and Prevention System, was a domestic intelligence-gathering program designed by President George W. Bush to have United States citizens report suspicious activity. The program's website implied that US workers who had access to private citizens' homes, such as many cable installers and telephone repair workers, would be reporting on what was in people's homes if it were deemed "suspicious."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterterrorism</span> Activity to defend against or prevent terrorist actions

Counterterrorism, also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Federal Police</span> Federal police department of the Australian Government

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the national and principal federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government with the unique role of investigating crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth of Australia. The AFP is an independent agency of the Attorney-General's Department and is responsible to the Attorney-General and accountable to the Parliament of Australia. As of October 2019 the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police is Reece Kershaw, formerly the Northern Territory Police Commissioner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joint Terrorism Task Force</span> Multi-agency law enforcement partnerships in the United States

A Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) is an American locally-based multi-agency partnership between various federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies tasked with investigating terrorism and terrorism-related crimes, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Justice. The first JTTFs were established before the September 11 attacks, with their numbers increasing dramatically in the years after.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israel Police</span> Civilian police force of Israel

The Israel Police is the civilian police force of Israel. As with most other police forces in the world, its duties include crime fighting, traffic control, maintaining public safety, and counter-terrorism. It is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Security. The National Headquarters of the Israel Police is located at Kiryat HaMemshala in Jerusalem.

Terrorism and mass attacks in Canada includes acts of terrorism, as well as mass shootings, vehicle-ramming attacks, mass stabbings, and other such acts committed in Canada that people may associate with terroristic tactics but have not been classified as terrorism by the Canadian legal system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Protective Service (United States)</span> US Federal law enforcement agency

The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is a federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It is also "the federal agency charged with protecting and delivering integrated law enforcement and security services to facilities owned or leased by the General Services Administration (GSA)"—over 9,000 buildings—and their occupants.

Criminal intelligence is information compiled, analyzed, and/or disseminated in an effort to anticipate, prevent, or monitor criminal activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany)</span> German federal investigative police agency

The Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany is the federal investigative police agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. It is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Hesse, and maintains major branch offices in Berlin and Meckenheim near Bonn. It has been headed by Holger Münch since December 2014.

In the United States, fusion centers are designed to promote information sharing at the federal level between agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice, and state, local, and tribal law enforcement. As of February 2018, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recognized 79 fusion centers. Fusion centers may also be affiliated with an emergency operations center that responds in the event of a disaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wisconsin Department of Justice</span> Legal entity

The Wisconsin Department of Justice is a state law enforcement agency with jurisdiction throughout the state of Wisconsin. Its headquarters are in Madison, the state capital, with main offices in the Risser Justice Center in downtown Madison. The Attorney General of Wisconsin oversees the agency. The attorney general is Josh Kaul, who was elected to his first four-year term in November, 2018, and assumed the office on January 7, 2019. The WDoJ manages the state's three crime labs, and investigates major crimes involving, among other things, illegal drugs, fugitives, public corruption, official misconduct, organized crime, domestic terrorism, Medicaid fraud and patient abuse.

The Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI) is a program of the United States government used to collect and share reports of suspicious activity by people in the United States. The Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) builds on what law enforcement and other agencies have been doing for years — gathering information regarding behaviors and incidents associated with criminal activity — but without the customary restrictions on collecting data on individuals in the absence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause. The program has established a standardized process whereby SARs can be shared among agencies to help detect and prevent terrorism-related criminal activity. This process is in direct response to the mandate to establish a "unified process for reporting, tracking, and accessing [SARs]" in a manner that rigorously protects the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, as called for in the 2007 National Strategy for Information Sharing (NSIS), which in turn was authorized by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Reports of suspicious behavior noticed by local law enforcement or by private citizens are forwarded to state and major urban area fusion centers as well as DHS and the FBI for analysis. Sometimes this information is combined with other information to evaluate the suspicious activity in greater context. The program is primarily under the direction of the US Government & U.S Department of Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Army Counterintelligence</span> Component of United States Army which conducts counterintelligence activities

United States Army Counterintelligence (ACI) is the component of United States Army Military Intelligence which conducts counterintelligence activities to detect, identify, assess, counter, exploit and/or neutralize adversarial, foreign intelligence services, international terrorist organizations, and insider threats to the United States Army and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

The United States Department of Justice defines school resource officers (SRO) as "sworn law enforcement officers responsible for the safety and crime prevention in schools". They are employed by a local police or sheriff's department and work closely with administrators in an effort to create a safer environment for both students and staff. The powers and responsibilities are similar to those of regular police officers, as they make arrests, respond to calls for service and document incidents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Militarization of police</span> Law enforcement using combat methods

The militarization of police is the use of military equipment and tactics by law enforcement officers. This includes the use of armored personnel carriers (APCs), assault rifles, submachine guns, flashbang grenades, sniper rifles, and SWAT teams. The militarization of law enforcement is also associated with intelligence agency–style information gathering aimed at the public and political activists and with a more aggressive style of law enforcement. Criminal justice professor Peter Kraska has defined militarization of police as "the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model".

Intelligence sharing is "the ability to exchange intelligence, information, data, or knowledge among Federal, state, local or private-sector entities as appropriate." Intelligence sharing also involves intergovernmental bilateral or multilateral agreements and through international organizations. Intelligence sharing is meant to facilitate the use of actionable intelligence to a broader range of decision-makers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domestic terrorism</span> Terrorism committed in a country by its own natives or nationals, without support from abroad

Domestic terrorism or homegrown terrorism is a form of terrorism in which victims "within a country are targeted by a perpetrator with the same citizenship" as the victims. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State Security Service of Georgia</span> State intelligence agency of Georgia

The State Security Service of Georgia (SSSG) is a state intelligence agency of Georgia, under the authority of the Government, which covers a broad spectrum of tasks to preserve national security in accordance to state legislature and relevant laws. Its missions are to protect the constitutional order, sovereignty, territorial integrity and military potential of Georgia from illegal acts of special services and individuals of foreign countries; to prevent violent and unconstitutional change of order and state authority. Further it is to ensure economic security and fight terrorism on national and international level, transnational organized crime and international crime as well as carry out measures towards prevention, detection and suppression of corruption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlueLeaks</span> Data leak of US law enforcement

BlueLeaks, sometimes referred to by the Twitter hashtag #BlueLeaks, refers to 269.21 gibibytes of internal U.S. law enforcement data obtained by the hacker collective Anonymous and released on June 19, 2020, by the activist group Distributed Denial of Secrets, which called it the "largest published hack of American law enforcement agencies".

References

  1. 1 2 Brown, Herb. "California's Terrorism Liaison Officer Program Modeled Nationwide". California Peace Officer's Association. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  2. "Top Secret America". The Washington Post. Retrieved 13 September 2015.
  3. 1 2 Finley, Bruce (2008-06-29). "Terror watch uses local eyes 181 trained in Colo". The Denver Post . Retrieved 2009-07-11.
  4. 1 2 Finley, Bruce (2009-09-24). "Dozens trained in Colorado to spot possible terrorism dangers". The Denver Post.
  5. Hodai, Beau (May 2013). "Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street" (PDF). Center for Media and Democracy. Retrieved 13 September 2015.
  6. BondGraham, Darwin (15 April 2015). "Counter-Terrorism Officials Helped Track criminal activity accompanying public protests". East Bay Express. Retrieved 13 September 2015.