ISBN:  Unavailable

Category: Unavailable

Page count: 18

State and local law enforcement agencies are important partners in preventing terrorism, with responsibilities that include identifying and investigating local terrorist threats and protecting potential targets from attack. To meet these responsibilities, law enforcement must develop better ways to find and analyze pieces of information that could spotlight potential terrorist activity. This research brief focuses on describing methods for finding and analyzing information indicating potential terrorist activity. This research brief will focus on describing methods for finding and analyzing information indicating potential terrorist activity. Within this context, we address two central challenges: how to find initial 'clues' or 'cues' -- information indicative of potential terrorist activity, especially if these pieces of information are obscured within large volumes of data across disparate data sources and formats, and as part of a follow-up investigation, how to collect additional information to determine whether an attack really is being planned, and if so, how to characterize the plot. While our focus is on the role of state and local law enforcement agencies in terrorism prevention, the information presented is also relevant to federal agencies tasked with protecting U.S. citizens and infrastructure.