Privacy and Civil Liberties

Issues, Resources, and Training for Fusion Centers and State, Local, and Tribal Justice and Public Safety Agencies

Benjamin Franklin is said to have observed,

"Those who would give up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARY SAFETY, deserve neither LIBERTY nor SAFETY."

This collaborative web portal is a single point of access to the wide range of resources and training materials available in the Information Sharing Environment (ISE) that address Privacy and Civil Liberties protections, including products released by DOJ’s Global Advisory Committee. This portal is the result of a combined effort by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

The 9/11 Commission Act requires Fusion Center personnel to receive training on the privacy and civil liberties issues associated with their work. The DHS Privacy Office and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties have partnered to develop training that meets this requirement, including creating this website and other training programs. Although originally intended for Fusion Center use, these resources can be easily adapted by law enforcement, criminal justice, public safety, and homeland security communities nation-wide for use in the development of their own privacy and civil liberties protections.

The Training Tool Kit section includes privacy and civil liberties materials such as a Diversity Series for State, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies entitled “Religions, Cultures, and Communities,” created by the Chicago Police Department in partnership with DOJ/BJA.

• For information on resolving common civil rights and civil liberties issues in the ISE, see the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Protections Guidance (15 pp. PDF) created by the Privacy Guidelines Committee’s (PDF, 2pp.) Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Work Group, and released by the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE) in August 2008.

The 9/11 Commission Act requires DHS to assess the impact of the Fusion Center Initiative upon privacy and civil liberties. These assessments were published in December 2008. The assessment templates can be adapted for agencies, regardless of size.

• Civil Liberties Impact Assessment: Fusion Centers (CLIA) (9 pp. PDF), created by the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (Also see template for creating your own CLIA), and
• DHS’s Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) (42 pp. PDF), created by the DHS Privacy Office (Also see other federal PIA templates).

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