About Fusion Centers | Operation Defuse: “A fusion center is a multi-jurisdictional law enforcement apparatus which seeks to merge the information gathering and intelligence sharing practices of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Initially sold to the public as a means of preventing and combating terrorism, fusion centers later took on an ‘all-crimes approach’ incorporating information and intelligence about a multitude of crimes from simple traffic tickets to large scale drug distribution networks. Drifting even further from their original purpose, some fusion centers have begun collecting and analyzing private non-criminal information such as shopping purchases, driving habits, and even health records.
While many existed prior, fusion centers received their national legislative backing through the passage of the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007. They were created to ‘bring down the barriers to information sharing’, a problem iterated by many in the intelligence community after September 11th 2001. Fusion centers accomplish this goal by standardizing the computer language used by various law enforcement agencies and granting each other access to their partner agency’s information systems and criminal intelligence databases.”