Northeastern states seek regional security centers

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Public safety officials from 10 Northeastern states, including Maine, want the Department of Homeland Security to oversee the creation of state and regional intelligence-sharing centers to get terrorism-related information to police officers on the street.

In a letter delivered Thursday to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, the officials, who form the Northeast Regional Homeland Security Agreement, endorse the idea of creating the intelligence centers.

“The Department of Homeland Security must achieve the goal of keeping our nation safe,” the letter said. “This will be enabled by getting the right information to the right people.”

The letter said information that would help officers on the street is not being provided by the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in each state.

The intelligence-sharing centers would be staffed by people with top-secret security clearances who would work directly with federal, state and local police, and security agencies.

The proposal was endorsed by the state representatives at a two-day meeting in Burlington on Thursday and Friday.

Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Kerry Sleeper said information that could help officers on the street fight terrorism isn’t reaching them. And those officers are the ones most likely to first detect terrorist activity, he said.

“America’s 700,000 state and local police officers are our country’s ‘boots on the ground’ in a domestic war on terrorism,” the letter said.

“Given the size of the country, and the enormity of the task we collectively face, we must utilize our front-line law-enforcement personnel as a prevention network able to interact with each other as well as with appropriate federal authorities,” the letter said.