The Pentagon is partnering with the Department of Homeland Security to start sharing some of its intelligence with state-level and smaller law enforcement agencies to help them protect their localities from potential threats. For more information on the program, read here.

DoDLive got the chance to meet with Michael McDaniel, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Strategy and Force Planning, Sept. 21 to talk about the program a little more in-depth.

The program, McDaniel explained, is meant to bring state and local law enforcement agencies into the national security fold.  By having access to what he called an online “neutral enclave” of rigorously access-controlled information, local agents will be able to take advantage of Defense Department intelligence and analysis to help in their cases when needed.

The Department of Defense currently holds about 85 percent of the nation’s intelligence and analysis, McDaniel said.

By allowing local agencies access to certain intelligence, the Department of Defense gives the Department of Homeland Security a wider network of enforcement to help curb domestic criminal activities that could threaten the United States. Information about IED construction, the relationship between international narcotics smuggling and terrorism, and possible fall-out from foreign reactions to various threats are some of the kinds of information being made available.

Information will be accessed via Homeland Security’s internal network. Defense created a specific site (the “enclave”) on their internal network that allows certain users access to intelligence information. The enclave is blocked from other sites, acting like an online reference library. The information is available for viewing only. Users will be required to maintain a Secret clearance and have approval through Homeland Security.

“We’re certainly giving [agencies] access to a heck of a lot of information they don’t have access to now,” McDaniel said, “but they don’t have full access to [our network].”

McDaniel explained that Defense’s role in this program is purely one of support. The Department of Defense doesn’t gather, maintain or store intelligence about U.S. citizens or domestic intelligence, it simply sees the necessity for sharing it’s information on foreign persons and events with state-side agents, he said.

He said the department’s stance couldn’t be reiterated enough, and steps were taken to ensure the new information-sharing program wouldn’t impose on the privacy or civil rights of American citizens.

“We are not a law enforcement agency, nor do we want to be one,” he said.