Critical Training Videos Removed from U.S. DHS Website

Good intelligence work is often about being in the right place at the right time or having a well placed source or network of contacts to provide real-time data on priority intelligence areas. The ECHO Intelligence team leverages a wide array of sources and broad network of trusted partners to help serve as our eyes and ears. This allows us to identify emerging criminal, public safety, and national security threat concerns.

Today, the ECHO team heard concerning news, not about threat information, rather possible degradation of efforts that support law enforcement and homeland security. At some point in the past month, the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has removed the Line Officer Training video and training video about SAR Fundamentals (aka the Bystander Training Video) from the DHS website. Furthermore, many other training videos were not removed from the site. A trusted source advised ECHO Intelligence that the line-officer video was taken down deliberately. Versions of this line officer training video have been used for more than the past 15 years to provide important guidance to state and local law enforcement officers on the importance of proper identification and timely reporting of suspicious activity data in the Homeland. The SAR Fundamentals training focused on understanding the 16 suspicious activity indicators and an overview of the SAR process.

At present, it remains uncertain why this important resource has been cut. In recent months, numerous files and webpages have been removed from U.S. government websites due to content in conflict with the current administration’s policies.

On its face, this is the type of effort that does not signal progress, rather regression. Training and guidance related to law enforcement’s discretionary activities including directly observing or processing SAR data should not be rolled back. This will likely elevate privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties (P/CR/CL) risks for all those inside the U.S., and limit the effectiveness of our front-line enforcement officers.

The ECHO team will continue to monitor, assess, and provide updates on the situation as available.