I don’t know the details of this story, but I do know the players involved on the TEW side and it is guys like John Sullivan and Larry Richards that advanced concepts of information sharing at the state and local level and efforts like theirs are what stand between us and the next attack. I’ve worked with the folks at the TEW for almost a decade and never have I met a group of local responders so dedicated to addressing the threats their jurisdiction faced and helping counter them with old fashion analysis and information sharing.
One can’t condone the unauthorized sharing classified information, but what we should really be focusing on is why this information was not getting to the folks that needed it in the first place. If one accepts the notion that all terrorism is local, then we fail when we don’t get counterterrorism intel to the folks at the local level that are in a position to exploit it. The LA TEW has been put to bed and we have a criminal information sharing center in its stead as we slowly watch all the pre-9/11 walls get built back up. We’ll be referencing this story and scratching our heads after the next attack.
I hear you G.I. (emphasis is mine)
To Marine Reserves Colonel G.I. Wilson — a leading theorist of unconventional conflict, and a long-time TEW participant — this case “is a huge indictment of the stove-piped systems we’re continue to propagate after wasting billions of dollars. It kind matters you wonder who the real bad guys are in this,” he tells DANGER ROOM.