Law Enforcement Analysis

[davidbfpo]

In my LE career, with a large part in intelligence, each time I noted there was a bigger gap between intelligence and operations. Intelligence by the 1990's was better understood by management to provide situational awareness, where it generally failed was to direct resources to problems and suspects - as so much effort was absorbed by response policing.

Pre-emptive action was rare and all too often intelligence was demanded after an event to guide an investigation.

The advent of better I.T., notably easy to access databases, made it easy for users to see intelligence as a reference library and not something they should contribute to. Yes, there can be security issues, IMHO they are nothing compared to the practice of officers / staff retaining information and alas forgetting.

Intelligence needs to add value and when directed invariably achieves results.

[Slowandsteady]

In my LE career, with a large part in intelligence, each time I noted there was a bigger gap between intelligence and operations. Intelligence by the 1990's was better understood by management to provide situational awareness, where it generally failed was to direct resources to problems and suspects - as so much effort was absorbed by response policing.

Pre-emptive action was rare and all too often intelligence was demanded after an event to guide an investigation.

The advent of better I.T., notably easy to access databases, made it easy for users to see intelligence as a reference library and not something they should contribute to. Yes, there can be security issues, IMHO they are nothing compared to the practice of officers / staff retaining information and alas forgetting.

Intelligence needs to add value and when directed invariably achieves results.

I agree, I think it's sometimes seen as a 'silver bullet', as opposed to a tool that can be used in specific scenarios to provide support to officers in the field/investigations.

[Slowandsteady]

In my LE career, with a large part in intelligence, each time I noted there was a bigger gap between intelligence and operations. Intelligence by the 1990's was better understood by management to provide situational awareness, where it generally failed was to direct resources to problems and suspects - as so much effort was absorbed by response policing.

Pre-emptive action was rare and all too often intelligence was demanded after an event to guide an investigation.

The advent of better I.T., notably easy to access databases, made it easy for users to see intelligence as a reference library and not something they should contribute to. Yes, there can be security issues, IMHO they are nothing compared to the practice of officers / staff retaining information and alas forgetting.

Intelligence needs to add value and when directed invariably achieves results.

As databases (particularly LE related) become more sophisticated, I think the line between information and intelligence, in particular IT's role in the whole process will probably become more blurred. Every department has budgets and wants to survive, some are more forward thinking than others.

[Fuchs]

@Rifleman:

I do not take myself seriously, but the issue that I am discussing about in here. You should be able to make that distinction.


It's not about what people think of themselves. Few think that they do wrong.

It's about resisting small steps into a wrong direction, even if the seem to be unimportant as for example making that 4th Amendment remark.

Small, incremental steps add up, as if they were an intentional salami slice tactic - and some people even do this intentionally.
You seem to think of yourself as a stalwart pro-constitution guy who cannot do wrong in regard to civil liberties.
That basically means you're extremely prone to do what you think you would not do. You're simply not critical enough of yourself, not willing to resist the urge to tolerate the incremental steps. You see no evil in the tiny stuff, even though that adds up.

In short; you were apparently raised in a country that did not apply lessons from experiencing the ruin of a republic and the establishment of dictatorship.


Evil regimes aren't build on the foundation of evil men. They're being built on 5% evil men and 95% men who don't resist.

- - - - -

Again: Military and law enforcement should not be mixed in a Western-style state. Especially not if the former is being used to suppress resistance in foreign countries.


Tell the LE guys to found their own forum and to draw lessons from foreign police institutions, not from the military or even from actively spying intelligence services.

[slapout9]

slowandsteady,
We used to have(a long time ago) a unit called the CIB (Criminal Identification Bureau). Now it sounds like a fingerprint unit but it wasn't, their job was to identify criminals that were coming into our jurisdiction (usually of the organized crime type) and then either monitor their activities or convince them that they should go someplace else. They were very proactive and intelligence and analysis(all done by hand,telephone,typewriters,teletype) was pretty much their stock and trade. We didn't have dedicated Crime Analyst back then. If you were a criminal they were bad news but there was little if any threat to Americas civil liberties. Which while I am on that, the coming digitalization, and centralization of medical records into the hands of privately run health insurance companies is going to far outstrip the average Americans civil liberties than anything the patriot act is ever going to do.