Responses should be a minimum of 250 words and include direct questions. You may challenge, support or supplement another student’s answer using the terms, concepts and theories from the required readings. Also, do not be afraid to respectfully disagree where you feel appropriate; as this should be part of your analysis process at this academic level.

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Respond to Chad:

Good morning classmates and professor,

This week we are looking at the roles, limitations and expectations of intelligence in the support of homeland security. This is a huge topic because of the fact that it also incorporates the state and local levels not just the national level of security. We are currently under an Intelligence Community (IC) and they are constructed of 17 different unique organizations that spread across six departments in the federal government with the majority of the departments falling under the Department of Defense (DOD) (Miles, 2016). As we dive into the roles that the intelligence community is responsible for we must realize that the majority of what we have in place today has come from terrorist attacks and our want to put countermeasures in place to protect our homeland. Intelligence is vital for all facets to include local and state. A lot of our intelligence can come from agencies that are connected to the state and local levels who work for the larger agency in the federal system. Having proper intelligence in the right place is vital to national security and the potential events that could be going on. Homeland defense can be understood as the United States taking the necessary action to prevent an attack against various threats against the nation that are taking place abroad. With this in mind it is not difficult to believe that homeland defense is a Department of Defense led program. The United States military is the primary asset used to prevent attacks from transpiring.

In terms of state and local agencies, one might suggest that state agencies such as a state police may assist with both homeland security and defense. State law enforcement may play a unique role in setting up barriers, road blocks, and checkpoints during a domestic operation. Local agencies centered on community enrichment and services may also support a large scale domestic issue from an embedded domestic military operation such as a large-scale protest or supporting in the recovering process of a natural disaster.

I feel like at this point in the federal government and the intelligence community do not communicate properly to be an effective asset. By this I mean that the intelligence community has its option what information they share with the federal agency and although we have been improving on this front, it can still be improved. Fusion centers allow for the free flow of information and allowing for these agencies to flow in a system like this is crucial for our future communications. One other feature that comes into play is the idea of intelligence gathering going too far into the privacy of the American people. The expectations that the American population has on this issue can be seen as it is the responsibility of these agencies to gather the required information and provide the proper information to the agencies that needs it. As the agencies evolve and get better, we need to do a better job of creating a scene where all the agencies will work together to share the information in a more timely manner and get the right material to the right agencies as they all have different missions and purposes. It can be hard to prioritize the correct information to share but as the gathering of intelligence is collected, we must all be aware that we are doing this to stop our enemies from hurting our homeland.

The American people can be very critical in the way that the information is gathered and they always have a voice in this matter. Understanding this aspect is a huge reason in which I feel the information isn’t shared by in a timely manner because our National government is always being scrutinized by the people and groups around the United States. Hopefully we can get better and change the way

-Chad

Resource:
Miles, A. (2016). Defense Primer: National and defense intelligence. Congressional Research Service. In focus IF I 0523. Retrieved from https://apus.intelluslearning.com/lti/#/lesson/148…