Fusion centers weren't put in place to militarize the civilian police forces or turn them into mini-intelligence agencies. The fusion centers (those that work -

Fusion centers weren't put in place to militarize the civilian police forces or turn them into mini-intelligence agencies. The fusion centers (those that work -- many of them have communication "issues", according to congressional investigations IIRC) were designed to simplify collaboration between law enforcement agencies around the US. There's a lot of interesting things that go on in the big (and little) cities in the country, but it's incredibly difficult for individual agencies to know what's going on in any of the others, except what they read in the newspaper. Using DHS as a service bus, they can better understand trends and collaborate on actions to deter or disable larger criminal networks. Yes, Homeland Security gets easier access to local police intelligence and stats as well, but DHS and FBI I think have jurisdiction to get that anyways. The point of these, though, is ultimately providing better information to police agencies so they can make better-informed decisions.