Contempory threats and American Law Enforcement

Are the concerns of the Director of the FBI valid? Why? Does giving top priority to some crimes distract law enforcement agencies from basic policing?

Any agency with limted resources has to determine how to priortize the use of those resources. Law enforcement agencies perform several different missions as part of their basic policing services. However, the primary function of any law enforcement agency is the protection of their commuity. Gomez sees counterterror operations as “greater sharing of classified domestic national security intelligence with state, local and tribal law enforcement, along with increased classified collection by law enforcement, is necessary to ensure the prompt mitigation of terrorist threats” (2013, p.93). Preventing terrorist actions, in particular, mass caulatity incidents, should definitely be considered as paert of that primary responsibilty. The Director's concerns seem a bit misplaced as far as some agencies are concerned if police have time to shut down children's lemondade stands, as discussed in a Forbes article regarding a “war” on such stands (Kaine, 2011).

Do the contemporary threats to the United States justify a complete or partial transformation of the FBI? Why?

Keller asserts that the amount of autonomy in which the FBI operates is a function of how “political elites” pervcieve the threats confronting the nation (1989, p.8). As the “elites'” perception of threats and FBI reponse to those threats change, so the overall mission and operational framework of the FBI will change as well. Complicating this is that the FBI is not the only agency tasked with security responsibilities.

What are the current threats that local law enforcement agencies face in the contemporary U.S.? What is the impact of these threats on local enforcement agencies? What revolutions in policing have taken place since 9/11? How do local agencies try to ensure that other issues are not ignored while everybody is working for "national security?"

The greatest threat that law enforcement agencies currently face is the propganda war being waged against them in the media.”Former NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir believes there is a 'war on police,' and said the flames are being fanned from the nation's highest office” (Chiaramonte, 2015, para. 7). This is a view supported by Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, “ Obama has created a pathway for the cop hating rhetoric to flourish. He has led the chorus” (2015). Other threats involve mission creep, or the process of overcriminalization as in the case of the lemonade stands discussed above, budget cutbacks, corruption, and racism (actual incidents, not propagandized incidents). All these threasts to agencies prevent LEO's from effectively performing their duties. The largest policing innovation since 9/11 has been the exapnsion of the use of the Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP) model. “A major impetus for ILP came shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks” Department of Criminal Justice Services, 2013, p.1). Local agencies need to prioritize the use of limited resources to actual crime. Homeland Security intelligence should be gathered in the course of normal policing activities, or in the knowledge of specific threats.

Most terror threats are local, but the FBI is a national police agency in charge of domestic intelligence. How is the intelligence information filtered down to the local level? What is the role of the FBI in coordinating domestic intelligence efforts at the local level? How does this impact local law enforcement agencies?

Since 9/11, there has been an ongoing debate about whether terrorists should be considered soldiers in a traditional war or international criminals. This has sparked further debate over whether attacks should be considered as "war" or as "crime." How do these two optional definitions of terrorism affect the roles to be played by law enforcement agencies in the U.S.? Support your responses with reasons and examples.

Do you think that the expansion of police authority in the interest of fighting terrorism impacts the local police responses to more traditional domestic crime? How? How do you think the next era of policing will develop as a result of September 11, 2001?

Chiaramonte, P. (2015, May 13).'War on police': Line-of-duty deaths rise amid racially-charged rhetoric, anti-cop climate. Fox News. Retrieved May 15, 2015 from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/05/13/war-on-police-line-duty-deaths-rise-amid-racially-charged-rhetoric-anti-cop/

Clarke, D. [SheriffClarke].(2015, May 11). I will say it again. Obama has created a pathway for the cop hating rhetoric to flourish. He has led the chorus.[Tweet]. Retrieved May 15, 2015 from https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/597834103556349952

Department of Criminal Justice Services. (2013). Review of the Intelligence-Led Policing model. Retrieved August 10, 2014

Gomez, D. C. (2013, March). Should cops be spies? Evaluating the collection and sharing of national security intelligence by state, local and tribal law enforcement. (Thesis). Naval Postgraduate School. Retrieved October 17, 2014 from https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/32825

Kain, E. (2011, August 3). The inexplicable war on lemonade stands. Forbes. Retrieved August 8, 2014 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/03/the-inexplicable-war-on-lemonade-stands/

Keller, W. W. (1989). The liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: Rise and fall of a domestic intelligence state. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

Fawaz Yunis was not an American citizen.

Should foreigners receive the due process protections that citizens do?

My opinion is no, that legal protections are to protect the security of Americans, not for those that seek to harm Americans (of course, an American citizen seeking to harm other citizens does deserve due process protection as a citizen).

This case also illustrates issues in treating terror as an anti-crime policy.

What types of crime do you think that the Director was referring to when he spoke of a distraction from basic policing?  What is basic policing?

Albanese discusses the different models of policing, and the relationship to how local agencies define thier missions; he discusses thew watchman, legalistic, and service models and how they differ in their definitions of basic policing (2013, pp.190-191).

From my own perspective, keeping the community safe is the greatest priority in police work.

Albanese, J. (2013). Criminal Justice (5th ed.)[Vitabook ed.]. Boston, Ma. Pearson

You make an excellent point regarding Hoover, and his control of the culture of the FBI, and the effect that had on information sharing.

In fact, the separation of overseas and domestic responsibilities  between the CIA and FBI was based almost as much on a personal dispute between Hoover and Wild Bill Donovan and their respective bureaucratic empire building as it did on Constituional grounds.

Due process protections should be extended to citizens (either native OR naturalized) only.  There should be three tiers of due process consideration;  citizen - legal alien -illegal alien.  Illegal aliens should have no due process protections whatsoever.  The way a suspect should be handled should be based upon their legal tier.
Currently, we extend full due process protections to all persons within the U.S.  This is due to a series of Supreme Court cases in the 1870/1880's regarding the 14th Amendment and Chinese railroad workers.  The Supreme Court defined the 14th so that citizens' rights applied to all.  This was, in my opinion, a mistake.  The 14th was created in order to make freed slaves into citizens.

In addition, captured terrorists do not deserve POW status or protections.  The Geneva Convention is very specific about it's definition of legal combatants.  The purpose of the Conventions is for the protection of civilian communities.  Because the nature of terror operations is inconsistent with the goal of protecting civilians, but also because, legally speaking, the terrorists do not fit the definitions of legal combatants, they deserve none of the protections of POW status.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). (1949). Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Retrieved May 16, 2015 from
https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/COM/375-590006?OpenDocument