# Interlocal Information Sharing **Domain:** Austin Research / Surveillance **Doc Type:** Institutional mechanism **Source basis:** Supplied essay and the specifically identified records; verification scope is recorded in [[wiki/Austin Surveillance Evidence Ledger|the evidence ledger]]. **Interlocal information sharing** is the use of agreements among public bodies to make records, analytic services, and authorized access available across jurisdictions. In the Austin case, the council of governments is an operational and contractual intermediary: it connects municipal participation to a wider sharing environment. ## The Austin mechanism On September 27, 2012, Austin authorized negotiation and execution of its [[wiki/Law Enforcement Analysis Portal|LEAP]] agreement with [[wiki/North Central Texas Council of Governments|NCTCOG]]. The agreement invokes Texas Government Code Chapter 791, provides 100 user licenses, specifies city RMS contributions, and assigns NCTCOG responsibilities for extraction assistance, gateway access, security, audit, and suspension. Federal participants are explicitly contemplated in its recitals. DHS’s separate [[wiki/DHS Law Enforcement Information Sharing Service|LEIS briefing]] lists NCTCOG LEAP among systems with existing MOUs. Taken together, the documents establish the institutional arrangement behind Bryant’s interpretation: **a municipal interlocal decision can be an entry point into federally interfaced national criminal-justice information sharing**. The city’s immediate counterparty is the council of governments; the federal interface is established at another layer. “No federal agreement with Austin required” describes this mediated participation route. It does not erase the upstream MOU, user authorization, permitted-purpose rules, or any separate agreements governing other systems. The arrangement changes where authority is negotiated and implemented; it does not remove authority from the architecture. ## Ownership, access, and continuity The city retains ownership and responsibility for its contributed information while permitting broader use under the agreement. These are distinct control dimensions: ownership, custody, search access, onward dissemination, correction, and withdrawal need not sit with the same actor. [[wiki/OneDOJ|OneDOJ]] independently describes using federal access to negotiate access to regional consortia through MOUs, giving the mediated exchange model a second primary institutional anchor. Automatic renewal can maintain participation without a new annual council vote. Provider transitions can then change the custodian or operator, making assignment instruments and surviving data-use conditions essential. The [[wiki/LEAP Provider Transition|2014 LEAP transition]] is the concrete Austin research lead for that question. ## Connected entries [[wiki/Law Enforcement Analysis Portal|Law Enforcement Analysis Portal]] · [[wiki/DHS Law Enforcement Information Sharing Service|DHS Law Enforcement Information Sharing Service]] · [[wiki/North Central Texas Council of Governments|North Central Texas Council of Governments]] · [[wiki/OneDOJ|OneDOJ]] · [[wiki/LEAP Provider Transition|LEAP Provider Transition]] · [[wiki/Structural Dual Use|Structural Dual Use]] · [[wiki/Digital Administrative Infrastructure|Digital Administrative Infrastructure]] · [[wiki/Interoperability as Absorption|Interoperability as Absorption]] ## Sources and corpus context - [[research/The Austin Surveillance Field|The Austin Surveillance Field]] - [City of Austin — LEAP interlocal agreement, recitals and §§2–7](https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=176641) - [Austin — approved minutes, September 27, 2012, p. 8, items 57–58](https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=177584) - [DHS — Law Enforcement Information Sharing Service briefing, slides 4–16; existing MOUs on slide 15](https://info.publicintelligence.net/DHS-LEISS.pdf) - [DOJ — OneDOJ privacy impact assessment, §§3 and 5](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/legacy/2013/11/23/onedoj-pia.pdf) **Cluster:** [[wiki/Austin Surveillance Field|Austin Surveillance Field]] · [[wiki/Austin Executable Loop|Austin Executable Loop]] · [[wiki/Austin Surveillance Evidence Ledger|Austin Surveillance Evidence Ledger]]