“Whether a plan for a terrorist attack is homegrown or originates
overseas, important knowledge that may forewarn of a future attack
may be derived from information gathered by State, local, and tribal
government personnel in the course of routine law enforcement and
other activities.”
- National Strategy for Information Sharing, October 2007
The Nationwide SAR Initiative
The Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) is an outgrowth of a number of separate
but related activities over the last several years that respond directly to the
mandate to establish a “unified process for reporting, tracking, and accessing
[SARs],” in a manner that rigorously protects the privacy and civil liberties
of Americans, as called for in the National Strategy for Information Sharing
(NSIS). The NSI process is a cycle of 12 interrelated operational activities,
which address the requirements outlined in the NSIS. The long term goal is
that most Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement organizations will
participate in a standardized, integrated approach to gathering, documenting,
processing, analyzing, and sharing information about suspicious activity that is
potentially terrorism-related. In addition to government agencies, private sector
organizations responsible for Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR)
and foreign partners are also potential sources for terrorism-related SARs.
The NSI is not a single monolithic program, but is rather a coordinated effort
that leverages and integrates all SAR-related activities into a unified nationwide
SAR capability. The NSI strategy is to develop, evaluate, and implement
common processes and policies for gathering, documenting, processing,
analyzing, and sharing information about terrorism-related suspicious activities.
The initiative will ensure that NSI participants at all levels of government adopt
consistent policies and procedures that foster broader sharing of terrorism-related
SARs, also known as ISE-SARs, while ensuring that privacy and civil
liberties are adequately protected in accordance with Federal, State, and local
laws and regulations.
On December 17, 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice was named the
Executive Agent to establish and operate the Program Management Office
(PMO) for the NSI. The PMO will be responsible for coordinating existing
resources and managing additional support to further develop and deploy the
NSI.
NSI Overview
