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In July 2010, the Department of Homeland Security, at Secretary Janet Napolitano's direction, launched a national "If You
See Something, Say Something" public awareness campaign –a simple and effective program to raise public awareness of indicators
of terrorism and violent crime, and to emphasize the importance of reporting suspicious activity to the proper state and local
law enforcement authorities. The campaign was originally used by New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has
licensed the use of the slogan to DHS for anti-terrorism and anti-crime efforts.
A critical element of the DHS mission is ensuring that the civil rights and civil liberties of persons are not diminished
by our security efforts, activities and programs. Consequently, the "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign respects
civil rights or civil liberties by emphasizing behavior, rather than appearance, in identifying suspicious activity.
Factors such as race, ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation alone are not suspicious. For that reason, the
public should report only suspicious behavior and situations (e.g., an unattended backpack in a public place or someone trying
to break into a restricted area) rather than beliefs, thoughts, ideas, expressions, associations, or speech unrelated to terrorism
or other criminal activity. Only reports that document behavior reasonably indicative of criminal activity related to terrorism
will be shared with federal partners.
The "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign is being launched in conjunction with the rollout of the Nationwide Suspicious
Activity Reporting Initiative. The NSI is an administration-wide effort to develop, evaluate and implement common processes
and policies for gathering, documenting, processing, analyzing and sharing information about terrorism-related suspicious
activities. Led by the Department of Justice, the NSI is implemented in partnership with state and local officials across
the nation.
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