Homeland Security Intelligence is not just an Enterprise; it’s a Community

The HSIE is a subset of the National Intelligence Program (NIP),  HSIE supports customers within DHS, state and local law enforcement, and the President. The entire US Intelligence Community: 16 organizations (17 including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence), all play a critical role in ensuring the security of the United States and it citizens. These activities are categorized as follows:

Policy: The US Intelligence Community has a long history in supporting policymakers to include the President, the National Security Council, and the Congress. In this regard homeland security policy is no different. A multitude of agencies in the IC provide finished intelligence products to senior policymakers at all classifications to create the nation's homeland security policy. Support tailored to this level of decision making can be thought of as Strategic Intelligence.

Prevent: the idea of prevent functions is not to let terrorism or international criminal organizations conduct activities in the United States but to stop them as far away from the Nation as possible. Some operational missions of the US DoD, CIA, and Department of State support homeland security by dismantling and disrupting terrorist networks (and other threats) overseas.  These missions can include diverse activities ranging from military direct actions to securing international agreements for terrorist prosecution. Intelligence at these “operational levels” is more detailed than Strategic Intelligence and tailored to support these missions. Operational Intelligence is often produced by the same agencies executing the missions.

The FBI also has a significant role in Prevent functions executed through its Legal Attaches based in 60 (or so) US Embassies.  DEA, DHS, and the Department of Treasury have more modest capabilities. These roles include passing of intelligence and coordinating criminal investigations with foreign law enforcement agencies, and identifying and seizing terrorist finances abroad. They all fit into the the ‘prevent category’ but they are minor compared in size, budget, and impact to those of the big three: Defense, State, and CIA.

Protect: The FBI and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) are lead organizations for the domestic investigation and prosecution of terrorist activities.

• The FBI is the lead agency for investigating terrorism in the United States. Its mission is to “identify and disrupt potential terrorist plots by individuals or terror cells—freezing terrorist finances, sharing information with law enforcement and intelligence partners worldwide, and providing strategic and operational threat analysis to the wider intelligence community.”
• The NCTC’s function is to “lead and integrate the national counterterrorism (CT) effort by fusing foreign and domestic CT information, providing terrorism analysis, sharing information with partners across the CT enterprise, and driving whole-of-government action to secure our national CT objectives”.   

However, homeland security intelligence goes far beyond just the issue of terrorism. Homeland security intelligence activities also are used to support the prosecution of international criminal organizations, cybercrime, and to support support cyber security. In an objective world, these activities should probably even be considered a greater threat to the United States than terrorism.

Response and Recovery:  Homeland security intelligence is aggressively used to support first responders to an incident and in the immediate aftermath. There is very little intelligence used in the recovery phase of homeland security operations.  However homeland security intelligence is provided by federal agencies and local law enforcement, through state fusion centers during incidents such as the Boston Marathon bombing or June 2016 Orlando  nightclub shooting.