Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2011

ISSN

0017-8322

Publisher

University of California Hastings College of Law

Language

en-US

Abstract

A new domestic intelligence network has made vast amounts of data available to federal and state agencies and law enforcement officials. The network is anchored by “fusion centers,” novel sites of intergovernmental collaboration that generate and share intelligence and information. Several fusion centers have generated controversy for engaging in extraordinary measures that place citizens on watch lists, invade citizens’ privacy, and chill free expression. In addition to eroding civil liberties, fusion center overreach has resulted in wasted resources without concomitant gains in security.

While many scholars have assumed that this network represents a trade-off between security and civil liberties, our study of fusion centers suggests they are, in fact, mutually reinforcing. Too often, fusion centers’ structure has been based on clever legal strategies for avoiding extant strictures on information-sharing, rather than objective analysis of terror threats. The “Information Sharing Environment” created by fusion centers has short-circuited traditional modes of agency accountability. Our twentieth-century model of agency accountability cannot meaningfully address twenty-first century agency coordination.

A new concept of accountability - network accountability - is needed to address the shortcomings of fusion centers. Network accountability has technical, legal, and institutional dimensions. Technical standards can render data exchange between agencies in the network better subject to review. Legal redress mechanisms can speed the correction of inaccurate or inappropriate information. We also propose a robust strategy for institutionalizing these aspects of network accountability, based on recent regulatory reform.

Find on SSRN

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.