Hoping to identify criminal and terrorist threats before they occur and more efficiently communicate with the public about natural disasters, law enforcement officials on Thursday announced that Southwest Florida's "fusion center" is fully operational.

The purpose of the Region 6 Fusion Center — a 10-county information-sharing hub for fire, health, emergency management and law enforcement — is to collect information from the four disciplines and "fuse" it into actionable intelligence, officials said.

"We're hooking together the people who need to be hooked together," said Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk, who is also the chairman of the center's governance board.

"If we have a strange or abnormal incident I expect investigators to utilize the fusion center and let them know what is going on instead of trying to call around the state and look at (be on the lookout alerts)," Rambosk said. "Bottom line is getting the information out to the public and safety agencies quickly and streamlining. Not having to make 25 calls now."

Fusion centers have drawn the ire of some civil liberties groups, who are concerned about ambiguous lines of authority, data mining and excessive secrecy.

In 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union published a paper questioning whether innocent people will be "flagged, scrutinized, investigated or arrested" because of a dragnet approach to information collecting.

During a press conference, Rambosk said the center has established privacy policies regarding the protection of civil rights and how information will be treated. Those policies can be viewed on both the Collier and Lee County Sheriff office's websites.

The fusion center is not a "secret database," he said.

"The center will look at only the geographic and interconnectivity of issues," said Tom Storrar, the former Collier County Sheriff's Office undersheriff who is now the center's director. "We do not look at suspects."

Attempts to reach a spokesperson with the ACLU of Florida were unsuccessful Thursday.

Southwest Florida’s fusion center will serve Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Hendry, Glades, Sarasota, DeSoto, Highlands, Manatee and Okeechobee counties. The center, at 4700 Terminal Drive in Fort Myers, has been in the works for over two years.

Fusion center officials had initially hoped to have the center up and running by summer 2010, but fell off track due to administrative rules and regulations.

There are 18 member agencies currently, including sheriff's offices, police departments, fire departments, health departments and the FBI. The main products of the center are situational awareness reports, threat assessments, intelligence assessments and information bulletins, the Collier County Sheriff's Office reported.

"Other agencies have their own intelligence and databases but that is not what this center is going to be about," Rambosk said. "It is just connecting organizations or individuals throughout the state and the nation addressing an issue."

The fusion center concept became popular after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. There are currently more than 70 fusion centers in the United States, including in Miami, Orlando and Tallahassee.

The Southwest Florida fusion center is part of the Florida Fusion Center Network, which covers the entire state. The local center will be able to communicate with other fusion centers.

Rambosk also said that the new center will save officials a lot of time with investigations.

"After 9/11 occurred it was said we need to share even more information," Rambosk said.

The fusion center will provide 24/7, live updated information so that if something were to happen, Southwest Florida would be prepared proactively, Storrar said.

The center is staffed by three full-time and two part-time employees. It has also created a liaison program that has trained 40 liaisons representing the four disciplines to work in the field and provide information that can be analyzed and integrated into a final product, according to a Collier County Sheriff's Office news release.