Terrorism Information Sharing And The Nationwide Suspicious Activity Report Initiative

The 9/11 Commission cited breakdowns in info. sharing and the failure to fuse pertinent intelligence as key factors in the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) contain info. about criminal activity that may also reveal terrorist pre-operational planning. The Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) is an effort to have most law enforcement org. participate in a standardized, integrated approach to gathering, documenting, processing, and analyzing terrorism-related SARs. This report describes the NSI, the rationale for the sharing of terrorism-related SARs, and how the NSI seeks to achieve this objective. It also examines the privacy and civil liberties concerns raised by the initiative.