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A Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) is an American locally-based multi-agency partnership between various federal, state, and local
law enforcement agencies A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement ...
tasked with investigating
terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
and terrorism-related crimes, led by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
and
U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...
.Jerome P. Bjelopera
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism Investigations
Congressional Research Service (April 24, 2013).
The first JTTFs were established in the 1980s and 1990s, with their numbers increasing dramatically after the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
.


History and organization

The first JTTF was established in 1980 in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, with ten FBI
special agent In the United States, a special agent is an official title used to refer to certain investigators or detectives of federal, military, tribal, or state agencies who primarily serve in criminal investigatory positions. Additionally, some special ...
s and ten
New York City Police Department The City of New York Police Department, also referred to as New York City Police Department (NYPD), is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, munic ...
(NYPD)
detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...
s. In 1999, the United States had 26 JTTFs; shortly after the attacks,
FBI director The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a United States federal law enforcement agency, and is responsible for its day-to-day operations. The FBI director is appointed for a ...
Robert Mueller Robert Swan Mueller III (; born August 7, 1944) is an American lawyer who served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. A graduate of Princeton University and New York University, Mueller served a ...
instructed all FBI field offices to establish formal terrorism task forces. By December 2011, there were more than 100 Joint Terrorism Task Forces nationwide, the vast majority established after the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
. There were 113 JTTFs as of 2013,Michael Price
National Security and Local Police
Brennan Center for Justice The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is a liberal or progressive nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Brennan Cente ...
at the
NYU School of Law The New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-b ...
(2013).
and approximately 200 JTTFs as of 2022.Michael E. DeVine et al.
Intelligence Coordination on Domestic Terrorism and Violent Extremism: Background and Issues for Congress
Congressional Research Service (September 1, 2022).
JTTFs are led by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
, which is part of the
U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...
. The various investigators, analysts, and specialists who participate in JTTFs (including linguists and
SWAT A SWAT (''Special Weapons and Tactics'') team is a generic term for a police tactical unit within the United States, though the term has also been used by other nations. SWAT units are generally trained, equipped, and deployed to res ...
personnel) are drawn from more than 600 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies (including both federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies). The FBI's 2011 ''Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide'', cited in a 2013
Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a ...
report, stated that more than 4,400 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers and agents work in JTTFs. The regional JTTFs coordinate their efforts through the interagency National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF), based at
FBI Headquarters The J. Edgar Hoover Building is a low-rise office building located at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Planning for the building began ...
in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
As of 2003, NJTTF was composed of representatives from 35 federal agencies and fell under the Operational Support Branch of the
FBI Counterterrorism Division The Counterterrorism Division (CTD) is a division of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. CTD investigates terrorist threats inside the United States, provides information on terrorists outside the country, and ...
. A 2013 report from the
Brennan Center for Justice The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is a liberal or progressive nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Brennan Cente ...
at the
NYU School of Law The New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-b ...
noted that "JTTFs tend to focus on investigative work while
fusion center In the United States, fusion centers are designed to promote information sharing at the federal level between agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice, and sta ...
s are geared towards information collection and analysis, but their missions are intimately related and often overlapping"; JTTFs and fusion centers are sometimes "co-located" in the same physical working space.


Investigations

Joint Terrorism Task Forces have participated in high-profile investigations, including investigations into the
2007 Fort Dix attack plot The 2007 Fort Dix attack plot involved a group of six radical Muslim individuals who were found guilty of conspiring to stage an attack against U.S. Military personnel stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The men were arrested by the Federal Bur ...
, 2007 John F. Kennedy International Airport attack plot, 2009 plot by
Najibullah Zazi Najibullah Zazi (, ; born August 10, 1985) is an Afghan-American who was arrested in September 2009 as part of the U.S. al Qaeda group accused of planning suicide bombings on the New York City Subway system, and who pleaded guilty as have two o ...
targeting the New York City subway, Tarek Mehanna case, 2012
Jose Pimentel Jose Pimentel (born November 8, 1984), also known as Muhammad Yusuf, is a naturalized U.S. citizen arrested on November 20, 2011, by the New York City Police Department for allegedly plotting to bomb New York City. Early life Pimentel is original ...
case, 2015 Usaama Rahim plot, Ahmad Khan Rahami's
2016 New York and New Jersey bombings On September 17–19, 2016, a series of three constructed bombs exploded and several unexploded devices were discovered in the New York metropolitan area alongside a shooting in Linden, New Jersey following a subsequent manhunt. The bombings an ...
, Mark Steven Domingo's failed 2019 plot to bomb a rally in
Long Beach, California Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...
, and
January 6 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob of supporters of Donald Trump, President Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup,Multiple sources: * * * * * * * * * * * * * two months afte ...
. Before
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...
psychiatrist
Nidal Hasan Nidal Malik Hasan (born September 8, 1970) is an American former United States Army major, physician, and mass murderer convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in the Fort Hood mass shooting on November 5, 2009. Hasan, an Army Me ...
murdered 14 people in a mass shooting at
Fort Hood Fort Cavazos is a United States Army post located near Killeen, Texas. The post is currently named after Gen. Richard E. Cavazos, a native Texan and the US Army’s first Hispanic four-star general. The post is located halfway between Austi ...
, the JTTF in San Diego had acquired two messages from Hasen to radical Islamic ideologue
Anwar al-Aulaqi Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki (; April 21 or 22, 1971September 30, 2011) was an American-Yemeni lecturer assassinated in Yemen in 2011 by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki was the first U.S. citizen to ...
. Concerned by the content of the messages, the San Diego JTTF contacted FBI Headquarters and the JTTF based in the FBI's Washington Field Office. The Washington Field Office did a limited assessment and concluded that Hasan was not "involved in terrorist activities." In the meantime, agents in San Diego acquired 14 additional emails and messages (12 from Hasan to al-Aulaqi and two from al-Aulaqi to Hasen), but San Diego did not forward these communications to the D.C. JTTF, and neither JTTF took any action.Lessons from San Diego: Improving Our Ability to Connect the Dots
United States House Committee on Homeland Security The U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. Its responsibilities include U.S. security legislation and oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. Role of the committ ...
, Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management Serial No. 112-118, September 14, 2012.
Hasan committed the terrorist attack at Fort Hood several months later.The William H. Webster Commission on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Intelligence, and the Events at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009
Homeland Security Digital Library,
Center for Homeland Defense and Security The Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California is a school focusing on homeland security education. The Center's programs and resources have been developed to advance the study of homel ...
.
A commission led by
William H. Webster William Hedgcock Webster (born March 6, 1924) is an American retired attorney and jurist who most recently served as chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 until 2020. He was a United States district judge of the United Stat ...
investigated the FBI's counterterrorism intelligence in the lead-up to the Fort Hood shooting, and released its final report in 2012. The Webster Commission found that the assessment of Hasan conducted by the FBI and JTTFs was "belated, incomplete, and rushed, primarily because of their workload" and an "exponential growth in the amount of electronically stored information." The report did, however, conclude that all the FBI and task force personnel "acted with good intent" and that their mistakes did not result "from intentional misconduct."


Local participation and withdrawals

In 2005,
Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...
became the first city in the nation to withdraw from a JTTF after the
City Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough counc ...
voted 4–1 to leave. The city rejoined the task force in 2015, with the City Council voting 3–2 to approve the assignment of two of its city's police officers to join the JTTF staff. In 2019, Portland again voted to leave the JTTF by a 3–2 vote. After joining in 2002,
San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
withdrew its
police officers A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of ...
from the JTTF in 2017. It was later revealed in 2019 from an FBI white paper that San Francisco police officers and the FBI were not truthful about the JTTF's violations of local law and policy, and that the police involved with JTTF thought civil rights and free speech in San Francisco were a problem.


Criticism

After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the FBI began to establish or intensify working relationships with campus police departments; by January 2003, JTTFs included campus police officers from at least a dozen universities. This prompted some criticism from faculty and student organizations. Documents obtained by various
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. T ...
(ACLU) affiliates in 2004, 2005, and 2006 in response to
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act (United States) of 1966 * F ...
requests showed that JTTF investigations have focused on "peaceful advocacy organizations such as the
School of the Americas Watch School of the Americas Watch is an advocacy organization founded by former Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois and a group of supporters in 1990 to protest the training of mainly Latin American military officers, by the United States Department of Defe ...
,
Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of Environmental movement, environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its biod ...
, Catholic Workers Group, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Colorado, and the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Justice in Pennsylvania, among others." The ACLU has criticized these investigations, calling them "inappropriate" targeting of "peaceful political activity having nothing to do with terrorism." After a detective with the
Fresno County, California Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most popu ...
Sheriff's Department who was a member of the JTTF attended public meetings of Peace Fresno in 2003, the Sheriff's Department issued a statement saying that "For the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department may visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public, on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally." In June 2008, according to ''
City Pages ''City Pages'' was an alternative newspaper serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It featured news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews and music criticism, available free every Wednesday. It ceased publication in 2020 due to a ...
'', the
Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
-based JTTF approached a source to infiltrate
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s and eventually report back to authorities on organized protesting activities in preparation for the
2008 Republican National Convention The 2008 Republican National Convention took place at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota, from September 1, through September 4, 2008. The first day of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party's convention fell on Labo ...
in nearby
Saint Paul Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century world. For his contributions towards the New Testament, he is generally ...
. In 2010, the Justice Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report that criticized the FBI for investigating various domestic activist groups from 2001 to 2006, including
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, the Thomas Merton Center, and the Catholic Worker. The OIG faulted the FBI for providing the OIG "with speculative, after-the-fact rationalizations for their prior decisions to open investigations that IGdid not find persuasive."
A Review of the FBI's Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups
'', Oversight and Review Division, Office of the Inspector General, September 2010.
A 2013 report from the
Brennan Center for Justice The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is a liberal or progressive nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Brennan Cente ...
at the
NYU School of Law The New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-b ...
argued that, "The most significant oversight problem with assigning police officers to JTTFs is that there is no mechanism geared towards ensuring compliance with state and local laws. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that rules relating to how police officers should act in the event of a conflict between their federal and state/local obligations are sometimes unknown and almost always unclear."


See also

*
Terrorist Screening Database The Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) is the central terrorist watchlist consolidated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terrorist Screening Center and used by multiple agencies to compile their specific watchlists and for screening. The li ...
*
Terrorist Screening Center The Threat Screening Center (formerly Terrorist Screening Center) or the TSC, is a division of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is the duty of the TSC to identify suspected or potential terrorists. Though ...
*
Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET; , ''EISN'') are Canadian counterterrorist, counter-foreign interference, and counter-espionage units operating under the auspices of Public Safety Canada. These federal investigative teams we ...
(Canada) *
National Counter Terrorism Policing Network Counter Terrorism Policing is the national collaboration of police forces working to prevent, deter, and investigate terrorism in the United Kingdom. The network is governed by the National Police Collaboration Agreement Relating to Counter Terro ...
(United Kingdom)


References

{{FBI United States Department of Homeland Security Task forces United States national commissions