Introduction
Sixteen years have passed since the terrorist attacks observed in September 11 in the year 2001 in the United States. America has since been described as an important state due to its values, resilience and resolve that it has used to overcome the tragedy ( Foster, 2005) . The Department of Justice together with the entire nation honours the memory of all who died in the 9/11 attacks remaining dedicated towards the fight against any persons that target the lives of Americans and their way of life ( Foster, 2005) . America has since the attack become stronger and safer and the government has reduced the capabilities of terrorists to penetrate and conduct their activities of terror on American soil courtesy of the offensive actions that the security agencies have undertaken both within and abroad.
The law Enforcement agencies in general have improved immensely in their ability to pinpoint, infiltrated and destroy the plots of terrorists following a some key changes in the structures of security, introduction of a new intelligence and tools for enforcing law and a new set of mind that values both sharing and preventing the information while it protects the civil liberties and interests of privacy vigorously ( Foster, 2005) . The departments have forged alliances with key persons in the fight for security and such partners have done a great job in ensuring their efforts to safeguard the nation of America stand and hold. It is impossible to have a perfectly safe nation and the justice department together with its partners have proceeded to build a stronger architecture of security to maximize the ability of the country to protect the homeland and have been on the constant move to adapt operations in a way that increases the security of the country while delegitimizing the terrorist actions ( Foster, 2005) . The agencies of law enforcement have done a great job to make key changes in their mode of operations to deal with terrorism.
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Early Reaction
It did not take long after the 9/11 for the agencies of law enforcement to concentrate on capturing information from many other sources and store the information in data repositories that were newly established. Information like Tips & Leads, intelligence on organized crime, and countering terrorism as well as the data gathered from the social media and the internet were highly sought after. However, that line of thinking has changed recently.
Besides the simple gather and storage of information, the law enforcement agencies have had a serious interest in setting up management systems of information that will be able to mine the existing data repositories in an effective manner and help them take advantage of the significant number of records that they have been able to gather for years. The post 9/11 move seeks to capture data and implement better management of the intelligent systems and has been aided by a good number of initiatives that have helped create a proper framework for cooperation between the agencies of law enforcement and other levels across the nation.
Key Initiatives
The National Data Exchange or N-DEX is a well-known and probably very large initiative in the US. The initiative was launched in the year 2008 by the FBI and entails a national system that allows the law enforcement agencies to share information that is non-intelligence like the Records Management System in a way that is easier. The systems enables it to catch criminals by sharing relevant information. It further helps in the prevention of both crimes and further the attacks carried out by terrorists showing patterns and trends they take.
The other change that the agencies have made since the 9/11 is the introduction of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI) that encourages the citizens to make reports on activities that seem suspicious like persons learning how to fly a jumbo jet but missing on how to land the same and any suspicious activity reports must be shared among the agencies in a bid to enhance analysis and investigations. The eGuardian system is an initiative by the FBI that is related to the above system and focusses on suspicious activity related to terrorism.
Before the introduction of the NSI and the eGuardian, the Tips and Leads would usually end up buried in the reports of incidents that were found in the CAD or RMS systems and could not have been in them ( Waxman, 2009) . The valuable information that would have been able to set up the image of terrorists was no longer available to the terrorists, drug, and gang investigation units. However, the information is currently vetted by trained and qualified personnel and further shared between the agencies more easily today.
The third key initiative to have been institutionalised entails the centres for fusion of intelligence that collect all information from the sources that are available, vet the information and analyse the same in a bid to identify trends and patterns as well as threats that may suggest a planner criminal activity sharing it among other interested parties. The information traverses to the federal, state, local, tribal and regional agencies. Approximately 70 DHS fusion centres have been operational since the year 2004 ( Waxman, 2009) . The fusion centres are command centres for threats at the regional level.
The centres perform well in their duty to analyse information by use of a combination of tools and analysts employing their specialized training. The centres further attempt to address the idea that clues relating to the activities of crime usually stay undiscovered when isolated in separate and disconnected databases of law enforcement. However, having the data in one place or having it accessible on a single software platform that allows analysts to connect the dots makes the fusion centres offer a more complete picture that exceeds the pieces of evidence of the individual. Therefore, the centres provide answers to the question why the agencies did not see 9/11 coming if they had all the pieces.
Social Media as a Resource
One that has significantly changed in the law enforcement agencies since the 9/11 attack is the availability of public information to the agencies via the social media and internet ( Serrao, 2012) . Search tools on the internet as well as networking sites and other key technologies have grown in a considerable manner meaning the investigators have a significant amount of information available to the public that they can use to learn about prospective suspects and thus a build a picture concerning their activities ( Serrao, 2012) .
The same applies to information of persons that publicly publish themselves using their Web-based profiles. The above stands truthful with the social media. Analytics technologies that are commercially available do well to pore via the data on social media and uncover the patterns and analyse sentiment. The tools can continue to monitor the conversation data both online and on social media in order to identify the significant topics and categories of content. The Predictive analytics can as well be applied in the identification of criminal threats during their development hence allowing the law enforcement to quickly intercede and thus prevent a possible crime or terrorist attack from taking place.
Creation of the Division of National Security of the Justice Department
The Department of Justice in the year 2006 brought about the National Security Division (NSD) that became the first new division in the Department of Justice in a span of 49 years merge all components of security in the department seen as primary into a single division that would effectively combat the threats of the security in the nation ( Serrao, 2012) . The division forged an alliance that saw the coming together of what used to be the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review that was the section of Counterterrorism and Counterespionage from all separate departmental parts.
The new Law Office together with the Executive Office and that of Justice for the Victims of Terrorism done overseas have managed to see the completion of NSD ( Serrao, 2012) . The structure of the NSD furthers a fusion of the authorities and all capabilities of enforcing the law and communities of intelligence to strengthen all efforts of security of the national government. Some of the accomplishments of the NSD include an improvement in the coordination between the agencies of law enforcement and prosecutors, development and promotion of the program of national counterterrorism that has yielded prosecutions against many defendants due to collaboration with the leadership of the department and a reorganization and increased staffing of the Office of Intelligence.
Transformation of the FBI
The FBI has undergone serious transformations since the 9/11 attack. The bureau has made serious restructuring to ensure its operations are in order for it to better direct and dismantle all terrorist activities. Today, the bureau acts as a key link between the communities of law enforcement and intelligence and thus establishes discipline of the system of criminal justice to the domestic activities of crime in a way that is consistent with the expectations of the Americans and that of privacy protections as well as civil liberties ( Brattberg, 2012) . The FBI in a bid to attain the above acclamations has ensure a strategic shift to overhaul the counterterrorism operations and expand its capabilities in intelligence and modernize its practices and technologies to improve coordination with relevant partners.
The key changes in the FBI include an establishment of the precise priorities that emphasize on the prevention while maintaining protection of the rights to privacy and civil liberties, an established national security branch of the FBI in the year 2005 that centralizes the programs of national security of the FBI ( Brattberg, 2012) . Other changes entail established groups of field intelligence, doubling the number of analysts in the FBI intelligence and realigning the resources and shifting some agents of the criminal programs ( Brattberg, 2012) . The bureau has also created and implemented the new manual of operation for all domestic operations that depend on the guideline of the Attorney General which are applicable across all areas of the program. It has further established key units that enhances the capabilities of counterterrorism that include the 24/7 Watch on counterterrorism. The financing operation section centralizes all efforts in order to track and further shut down financing of terrorist activities.
How changes have not worked
Most of the resources of law enforcement were dedicated to countering terrorism after the 9/11 attack. Unfortunately, the move meant starving other units of staff members. Still, there are cases of the police agencies collecting numerous amounts of information but fail to conduct a complete and serious analysis on them making them unfit to incorporate to strategic responses ( Brattberg, 2012) . Some of the technologies are not easy to use despite being available. For instance, some departments fail to appreciate the meaning of the mining CAD data.
The government has since the 9/11 worked tirelessly to ensure the maturity of the Modern Environment for Sharing Information that allows investigators together with the analysts immediate access to the required information received from many levels across the country. The move does well to address the key issues raised by the commission report of the 9/11 ( Brattberg, 2012) . All efforts have been made possible to ensure the capture and information sharing are efficient. The same further entails all the technologies that ease the location of enforcement of law is better than the 2001 day of terror fate.
The benefits have been on the increase to get to the enforcement of law and the beat cop who has a field situational awareness which has greatly improved courtesy of the greater accessibility to the resources of analysis and search technologies that are mobile. Some agencies have made it their business to make available the CAD data and RMS to the regional law enforcement agencies that marks a significant change since the 9/11 ( Brattberg, 2012) . However, it is important to have more agencies on board because crime crosses these borders and the data integration will go a long mile in helping the agencies fill gaps to allow both investigators and analysts to find out the the unseen links that previously completed the picture.
Conclusion
The Department of Justice and the entire nation honours persons that died in the 9/11 attacks remaining fully dedicated its resources to fight persons that target the lives of Americans and their way of life. America has since the attack become stronger and safer and the government has reduced the capabilities of terrorists to penetrate and conduct their activities of terror on American soil courtesy of the offensive actions that the security agencies have undertaken both within and abroad.
It did not take long after the 9/11 for the agencies of law enforcement to place great emphasis on the capture of information from various sources and store the information in data repositories that were newly established. One that has significantly changed in the law enforcement agencies since the 9/11 attack is the availability of public information to the agencies via the social media and internet. It is well to appreciate that the agencies of law enforcement have made tremendous progress in improving counterterrorism since the 9/11 attack. However, there is still room for improvement.
References
Brattberg, E. (2012). Coordinating for Contingencies: Taking Stock of Post‐9/11 Homeland Security Reforms: Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management , 20 (2), 77-89.
Foster, C., & Cordner, G. (2005). The Impact of Terrorism on State Law Enforcement Richmond, KY: The Council of State Governments and Eastern Kentucky University .
Serrao, S. (2012). What's Changed in Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysis Since 9/11? | Hendon Publishing . Hendonpub.com . Retrieved 29 November 2017, from http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/article_archive/results/details?id=1157
Serrao, S., & Peet, D. (2011). 9-1-1 Magazine: How 9/11 Has Changed Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysis . 9-1-1magazine.com . Retrieved 29 November 2017, from http://www.9-1-1magazine.com/Serrao-Peet-How-Sep-11-Changed-Intel-Analysis
Waxman, M. C. (2009). Police and national security: American local law enforcement and counterterrorism after 9/11. J. Nat'l Sec. L. & Pol'y , 3 , 377.
