The document Fusion Center Guidelines addresses the development of guidelines for fusion centers as well as the foundation for the development of fusion center guidelines for law enforcement intelligence, public safety, and private sector entities. These guidelines and related materials will provide assistance to centers as they prioritize and address threats posed in their specific jurisdictions for all crime types, including terrorism, and guide administrators in developing policies, managing resources, and evaluating services. The fusion process supports the implementation of risk-based, information-driven prevention, response, and consequence management programs as well as efforts to address immediate and/or emerging threat-related circumstances and events. The document also defines fusion centers and explains that the principal role of fusion centers is to compile, blend, analyze, and disseminate criminal intelligence and other information (including, but not limited to, threat assessment, public safety, law enforcement, public health, social service, and public works) to support efforts to anticipate, identify, prevent, and/or monitor criminal activity.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 is intended to improve the intelligence, intelligence community, and intelligence-related activities of the United States government, including the prevention and prosecution of terrorism, border security, and international cooperation and coordination.

The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (NCISP), the first of its kind in the country, provides a blueprint to help agencies establish criminal intelligence sharing policies, procedures, standards, technologies, and training. The NCISP was assembled with close input and cooperation from local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies, and it has been endorsed by numerous national law enforcement organizations. Implementation of the NCISP will provide law enforcement agencies with the ability to gather, analyze, protect, and share information and intelligence to identify, investigate, prevent, deter, and defeat the perpetrators of criminal and terrorist activities, both domestically and internationally.

The National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, provides the unifying structure, processes, and mechanisms for the integration of existing and future critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) protection efforts into a single national program. The NIPP discusses the roles and responsibilities of the security partners, the risk-management framework, organizational structures and partnerships needed, how CIKR is part of the homeland security mission, and how to ensure an effective, efficient, long-term program and provide the required resources for the CIKR protection program.

The updated National Strategy for Homeland Security guides, organizes, and unifies our nation’s homeland security efforts. It builds on the first National Strategy for Homeland Security, issued in July 2002, and complements both the National Security Strategy issued in March 2006 and the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism issued in September 2006. It reflects the increased understanding of the threats confronting the United States, incorporates lessons learned from exercises and real-world catastrophes, and articulates how to ensure our long-term success by strengthening the homeland security foundation. Issued October 2007.

Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support focuses on achieving the U.S. Department of Defense goal and strategies for leading, supporting, enabling, and securing the United States from direct attack. The strategy is rooted in the following guidelines: respect for America’s constitutional principles, adherence to Presidential and Secretary of Defense guidance, recognition of terrorist- and state-based threats to the United States, and commitment to continue transformation of U.S. military capabilities. This report discusses the priority objectives, such as achieving maximum awareness of potential threats and deterring, intercepting, and defeating threats at a safe distance. It also discusses the capabilities of (but is not limited to) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities and information sharing for homeland security and civil support. This report also explains the projected implications of the Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support.

This Unified Message document, issued in April 2012, was created to help clarify a unified approach to the process of reporting and sharing information related to suspicious activity.