e-Guardian – FBI Shares Threat Info With Local Police Agencies

The FBI has launched a system to share tips about possible terror threats with local police agencies just in time for the presidential inauguration.

The program aims to get law enforcement at all levels sharing data quickly about suspicious activity and people, particularly in and around the nation’s capital in the week leading up to the historic ceremony.

Officials say they are getting as many as 1,000 tips a day from the public.

Called e-Guardian, the program had been delayed and underwent a smaller pilot project before launching New Year’s Eve as a system available to law enforcement agencies around the country.

Federal authorities hope the new system overcomes a drawback of another version, which lets police report their suspicions to the FBI but doesn’t allow officers to search the system for similar patterns in other jurisdictions.

The program “will allow all law enforcement to share threats and suspicious activity and hopefully prevent a terrorist attack,” said FBI supervisor Gerald Rogero, in Washington.

Of the 1,000 tips, a dozen might be worth noting in the new system.

With e-Guardian, Rogero said, those specific reports can be quickly checked by police in far-flung jurisdictions in case they have noticed something similar, such as a wave of uniform thefts or stolen military equipment.

Any law enforcement officer with an Internet connection and an account on the system can access e-Guardian.

via The Associated Press: FBI shares threat-tips with local police agencies.

An NYPD detective is e-mailed a photograph of two suspicious men who appear to be casing the Brooklyn Bridge. Her department uploads the picture and inputs details about the pair into a computerized, Internet-based system called eGuardian, looking for similar incidents. Lo and behold, there’s a match. Two men fitting the description had been spotted 48 hours earlier photographing the Washington Monument and are being sought for questioning. The NYPD report is sent via eGuardian to the state’s fusion center, which reviews it and then passes it along to our New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which will in turn share it with D.C. investigators.

It’s purely a hypothetical, but it’s exactly the kind of dot-collecting and dot-connecting that will soon be possible between law enforcement and intelligence players at every level of government across the country—thanks to FBI technology.

The eGuardian system—which is being piloted by several agencies and will start being rolled out in phases nationwide by year’s end, complete with training—will enable near real-time sharing and tracking of terror information and suspicious activities with our local, state, tribal, and federal partners. It’s actually a spin-off of a similar but classified tool called Guardian that we’ve been using inside the Bureau—and sharing with vetted partners—for the past four years.

How Guardian works. FBI field offices and Legal Attaché offices overseas input suspicious activity reports, potential terrorism threats (like a phoned-in bomb threat), and terrorist incidents (like actual bombings). This information is tracked, triaged, searched, and analyzed by agents and analysts at FBI Headquarters, and—if appropriate—submitted to one of our 106 Joint Terrorism Task Forces around the country for further action.

How eGuardian works. In a very similar way, except it will be available through our secure Law Enforcement Online Internet portal to more than 18,000 agencies, which will be able to run searches and input their own reports. Their entries will be automatically sent to a state “fusion center” (or a similar intelligence-based hub) for vetting, where trained personnel will evaluate it and then either monitor it, close it, or refer it to the appropriate FBI terror task force. Ultimately, eGuardian will add additional capabilities like geo-spatial mapping, live chats, and link analysis.

Guardian and eGuardian will work together, feeding each other. eGuardian entries with a possible terrorism nexus will be pushed to Guardian and out to our task forces, and unclassified threat and suspicious activity information from the FBI housed in Guardian will be pushed to eGuardian and out to the entire law enforcement community. It’s an effective one-two punch.

Urgent matters and investigative issues, however, will continue to be worked with state and local law enforcement through existing FBI channels.

What happens if an incident has no probable link to terrorism? The report is deleted to ensure personal data is not being needlessly stored. If the information is deemed “inconclusive,” it will remain in eGuardian for up to five years, in accordance with federal regulations.

eGuardian is yet another FBI technology that is enabling information to flow and dots to be connected in powerful new ways. By making the jobs of law enforcement easier, it will help make our communities safer.
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Aspen – Bombs Wrapped Like Christmas Gifts Delivered To Banks – Suspect Found Dead

Aspen Bomb Suspect

A man delivered bombs wrapped as Christmas presents to two banks Wednesday along with notes threatening “mass death” if they did not turn over tens of thousands of dollars, Aspen police said Thursday.

Authorities were quickly alerted, and the man apparently halted his plan — leaving two bombs in an alley that were likely intended for other banks, police said.

The man, identified as James Blanning, 72, who had had previous contacts with law enforcement, was later found dead after apparently shooting himself, police said.

His body was found in his car in a rural area east of Aspen.

The incidents Wednesday sparked the evacuation of a 16-block area of Aspen on New Year’s Eve, one of the busiest days of the year for businesses in Aspen.

Bomb squads ultimately detonated the devices, and no one was injured.

Evacuation orders were lifted early Thursday.

Source – CNN.com.

The following is the text of four identical notes left with gasoline bombs by a man who was found dead and who police said was trying to extort Aspen, Colo., banks on New Year’s Eve:

YOU HAD BETTER BE A VERY COOL INDIVIDUAL AND NOT START A PANIC OR MANY IN ASPEN WILL PAY A HORRIBLE PRICE IN BLOOD.

WE HAVE ALL OF THE COP THREATS TO US UNDER VERY SOPHISTICATED ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE. DO NOT F— WITH US OR THERE WILL BE MASS DEATH LIKE WE HAVE ALL BEEN PART OF OVER IN THAT F—ING QUICKSAND TRAP THAT ROVE’S AND CHANEY’S MONKEY BUS PUT US INTO WHERE SO MANY OF OUR SOUL MATES AND BROTHERS DIED VERY HORRIBLE DEATHS.

DO NOT MOVE OR COVER THE VERY BIG FIRE CRACKER IN THE PLASTIC CONTAINER. UNIQUE CHEMICALS AND ELECTRONICS.

TAKE THIS SHEET AND THE WHITE BOX TO THE ACTING HEAD TELLER. THE OTHER THREE ASPEN BANKS ARE GOING THROUGH THE SAME THING THIS ONE IS AND THIS IS AS MUCH A SUICIDE MISSION AS A BANK ROBBERY, SO, IF IT GETS F—-D UP, OUR SOULS HAVE ALREADY BEEN DESTROYED AND WE WILL ALL DIE LIKE THE RAG-HEAD MARTYRS THAT WE WERE KILLING OVER THERE. THEY TRAINED US GOOD FOR THIS SORT OF THING.

PUT $60,000 IN USED $100s IN THE WHITE BOX. ANY DYES, TRACKERS, OR OTHER BULLS—T WILL CAUSE DISASTER TO ALL.

IN 20 MINUTES HAVE SOMEONE TAKE THE WHITE BOX OUTSIDE THE FRONT OF THE BANK AND WAIT UNTIL SOMEONE COMES UP AND POINTS DIRECTLY TO THE BOX WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING, THEN GIVE IT TO HIM. HE HAS BEEN AND IS WELL COVERED.

AFTER 2 HOURS THE FIRE CRACKER (IED), IF NOT DISTURBED, WILL AUTOMATICALLY DEACTIVATE AND CAN BE MOVED TO A SAFE PLACE (THE DUMP?) TO BE DISPOSED OF. FOR VERY UNIQUE CHEMICAL REASONS, WE RECOMMEND THAT ALL BE SET ON FIRE. WE LEARNED SOME NASTY CHEMISTRY FROM THE MARTYRS, ETC.

PS – FOR ADDED INSURANCE, THERE IS ALSO A FIFTH FIRE CRACKER HIDDEN IN A HIGH END WATERING HOLE THAT WE WILL REMOVE AFTER WE ARE FULLY CLEAR AND KNOW FOR SURE ALL HAS GONE WELL. F— THE WHOLE WORLD, ALREADY.

Source: Aspen Police Department