Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative

The Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI) is a program of the United States Government used to collect and share reports of suspicious activity by people in the United States. The Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) builds on what law enforcement and other agencies have been doing for years — gathering information regarding behaviors and incidents associated with criminal activity — but without the customary restrictions on collecting data on individuals in the absence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause. The program has established a standardized process whereby SARs can be shared among agencies to help detect and prevent terrorism-related criminal activity. This process is in direct response to the mandate to establish a “unified process for reporting, tracking, and accessing [SARs]” in a manner that rigorously protects the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, as called for in the 2007 National Strategy for Information Sharing (NSIS). Reports of suspicious behavior noticed by local law enforcement or by private citizens are forwarded to state and major urban area fusion centers as well as DHS and the FBI for analysis. Sometimes this information is combined with other information to evaluate the suspicious activity in greater context. The program is primarily under the direction of the US Department of Justice.

Suspicious activity is defined in the ISE-SAR Functional Standard (ISE-SAR FS) Version 1.5 as “observed behavior reasonably indicative of pre-operational planning related to terrorism or other criminal activity.” It is important to note that the NSI is a behavior-focused approach to identifying suspicious activity. Factors such as race, ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation are NOT considered as factors that create suspicion (except if used as part of a specific suspect description). The behaviors outlined in the ISE-SAR FS were identified by subject-matter experts; validated through implementation in the Los Angeles, California, Police Department and the application of ten years of State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) Program experience; and then adjusted based on input by privacy advocacy representatives. At the completion of this process, in May 2009, the ISE-SAR FS was published, with the entire SAR process anchored on behaviors of suspicious activity, not ethnicity, race, or gender.

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