Law Enforcement and Intelligence: Combating the Criminal Activities - Research Paper Example

 Abstract The issue of security is a subjected of continues heated and mixed debates within the public and legislative platforms. The United States continues to engage the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in combating the criminal activities facing the country. This paper evaluates the law enforcement agencies, providing a brief description of the agencies. The paper also covers the emergent challenges facing the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in executing their duties. Further, the conclusion discusses the future trends expected within the working of the security agencies in ensuring the safety of the United States of America. Introduction The emergence of transnational criminal activities continues to challenge the efforts of national and intelligence agencies working within the United States. The criminal profile, today, incorporates traditionally organized groups that conduct activities such as theft, smuggling and all contraband criminal activities, as well as internationally organized financial and trending terrorism crimes. These criminal networks engaging both domestic and international conflicts continue to create threats and undermine the existing security agencies. Nonetheless, the government law enforcement and intelligent agencies, alongside private intelligence firms continue to initiate security collaborations to nub the growing security crisis nationally and internationally. The law enforcement and intelligent agencies are vast and operate from the local to the federal jurisdictions in endeavor to secure the citizens of United States. The law enforcement and intelligence agencies The federal law enforcement and intelligence services of the United States are vast. These include the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Defense Criminal Investigative Service, U.S. Drugs Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service and the Criminal Investigation Agency, among many other agencies make the list. All these agencies, alongside the state and local security platforms constitute the security organization of the country. These security agencies have a responsibility to gather information, compile findings and act on the intelligence gathered in enforcing the law. The FBI for instance, alongside the CIA continues dismantling complex criminal organizations have the responsibility of leading the criminal investigative procedures to understand and eliminate the security threats within the jurisdictions of United States. Traditionally, the intelligence and law enforcement agencies gathered information on criminal activities via the primary existing cases. However, the current developments within the security policies and programs of the country allowed the establishment of independent investigative procedures, which incorporate spying for information from suspected threats. Further, several developments in legislation promote the working of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in combating the acts of terror and crime against the country. These legislative developments include the Patriotic Act, among many other policies and rules for engaging the security agencies in their responsibility to serve and protect the citizens of the united sates. There is variety of laws that allow the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to investigate regulatory and criminal activity. These allow these agencies to gather information even from restricted areas such as private lives and property. Surveillance for intelligence purpose is another development within the law enforcement and intelligence gathering services of the country. Various legal structures outline the procedures incorporated in the process of conducting the surveillance, without arousing conflicts within the activities of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the United States. Failure of the law enforcement and intelligence services to acquire the valid warrant as designated by the Fourth Amendment affects the admissibility of the evidence gathered through this surveillance subject. These are developmental factors that continue to impact the procedural engagements of the security agencies. There are foreign intelligence networks created to work in conjunction with the national intelligence services due the global nature and spread of the criminal networks. These facilitations enable the security department of the country to address the security threats from outside the country with precision and within the confines of international laws. Challenges The relations between the CIA and FBI, prior to the September-eleventh attack on the United States, lacked the cohesion to work in collaboration. However, after that fateful event, the processes and reasons for engagement changed. These intelligence agencies realized the need to incorporate working platforms that allow for sharing o resources and information. This marked the need for establishing the joint terrorism task force in order to combat the growing threat of terrorism among many other accounts of crime. However, despite these developments and initiatives to incorporate collaborative working between the various law enforcement and intelligence unit services, the threat of terrorism remains the leading challenge to the security of the American citizens. Terror continues to harm and create insecurity within the face of law enforcement and intelligence agencies despite the various steps taken to wage war against it. The terror activity incorporates the face of domestic and international terror groups, all with the aim of creating chaos within the country. The face of terror continues to pose as a threat due the incumbent and increasing technological advancements of the face of crime. The war against terror faces challenges from the networked nature of the terror crimes, backed and progressed by the globalization of the world, creating links for the these terror groups to engage their unlawful activities. Therefore, the law enforcement and intelligent agencies all incorporated within the joint terrorism task force continue to work towards engaging the threat of terror from within and outside the country. Like the vast society, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies face challenges in executing their charged responsibilities from the changing political, technical and economic settings. Traditionally, the law enforcement units focused their activities and engagements within the immediate area of jurisdictions. The patterns of jurisdiction matched the patterns of criminal activity. However, the globalization process and technological advancements brought be the changing face of political and economic platforms. The globalization of politics and economic interests pose increasing challenge to the administration of security duties by the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies as they struggle to keep with the changing trends of networked international crime. The political and economic interests of the United States continue to elicit mixed reactions within the local and international platforms, initiating grounds for involvement and extension of international criminal networks into the security of the country; such include the international cyber crimes, terrorism and financial crimes among others. These developments within the changing social-political and economic platforms initiate the need to engage the combined effort of the entire law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the country in securing the lives of her citizens. Further, the restrictions within the constitution of the country among other regulatory offices that work to constrain the engagements of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies continue to challenging the process of ensuring security in United States. There are various outcries by the public and human rights activists on the procedures engaged by the law enforcement and intelligence services in maintain security of the people. For instance, the debate on the use of torture in the procedure of gathering information from suspects continues to elicit mixed reactions as relates to the rights of these individuals. The accusations against the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of busing their legal restrictions in gathering information impact the procedures of gathering intelligence. Further, the legislation continues to incorporate laws to guide the procedures of gathering information such as the question of privacy of the people with respect to the surveillance programs of the security agencies. Thus, these legal restrictions continue to challenge the procedures of engaging the law enforcement and intelligence services in executing their responsibilities of ensuring safety and security of the American citizens. Conclusion Various future current and expected future developments will influence the responsibility of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies. To begin with, the personnel of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies will need to become tech savvy because of necessity. There is need for the agencies to explore their resources effectively to gain more from their officers and personnel. Consequently, this initiates the push to evaluate ability of the security agency personnel on their competency in using technology, to equip them for engaging and thwarting criminal activities effectively. The agencies, by incorporating the tech savvy of their personnel, will manage the crime and terror threats with reduced costs. Another aspect is the social media analytics and sentiment analysis, which a tool for probing the likelihood of given criminal activities. The incorporation of these tools in mining data and building relations with the public will foster the process of achieving security by the law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Further, the procedures of handling the confidential informants at the state and federal levels put the officers at risk, increasing the possibility of manipulations. Further, the confidential informants may have personal interests, thus, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies will need to incorporate de-confliction procedures for successful intelligence gathering process. The aspect of real-time information in various mobile devices is another area that the security agencies will need to incorporate in engaging the crime threats in the future. References Cramer, S. (2012). Law Enforcement in the United States. Delhi: University Publications. Intelligent Agencies: Collaboration within the united states. (2012). Sage Publications, http://www.credoreference.com/entry/sagetcj/intelligence_agencies_collaboration_within _the_united_states Hess, K. M., Orthmann, C. M. H., & Cho, H. L. (2012). Introduction to law enforcement and criminal justice. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar/Cengage Learning. Stein, J. (2013). The Biggest Little CIA Shop You’ve Never Heard Of. Newsweek Global, 161(41), 1-7. Streissguth, T. (2012). The Security Agencies of the United Sates: How the CIA, FBI, NSA and Homeland Security Keep Us Safe. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers. Read More