Intelligence-gathering “fusion-centers” operated across the country and funded by the Department of Homeland Security are in for a rude awakening when a Congressional report is officially released next week. According to early reports, Congress says the centers often toe the line of citizen’s civil liberties and provide intelligence rarely related to terrorism.
The NY Times says Congressional investigators took some time in investigating the regional counter-terrorism centers, which are staffed with state and local law enforcement agencies. These centers, which submit their “intelligence” via reports to the Department of Homeland Security, are designed to be the ground-level working arm of the Department, “connecting the dots” to prevent terrorist attacks. But, it doesn’t seem like their efforts (what efforts there are) are doing much good.
The Congressional report, due to released next Wednesday, says the centers “forwarded intelligence of uneven quality — oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.”
What does this mean? It means local and state law enforcement working in terrorism-intelligence gathering centers produced worthless reports, often taking from intelligence already published by the federal government, rather than intelligence they gathered themselves. Also, their work in collecting this so-called intelligence often crossed the lines of civil liberties, potentially violating the rights of innocent citizens.
As many of us who are aware of the growing police-state in this country, the Congressional report comes as no surprise. What is surprising, however, is that a branch of the government is admitting the problem.
Investigators also found that some of the fusion centers don’t even exist. On paper, they are there, receiving millions for local and state law enforcement counter-terrorism efforts, but in actuality no intelligence gathering center is there. As a result, federal officials “cannot account for as much as $1.4 billion in taxpayer money earmarked for fusion centers.”
The officials assigned to work in these fusion centers are given one week of training, and then tasked with analyzing information that comes their way in pursuit of terrorists, investigating, and reporting to Homeland Security.
Draft reports from these centers, however, were often never seen. In a span of 13 months, 188 of 610 reports were never published for use within federal agencies. Hundreds of others sat on desks for months, making their information cold and worthless. Many reports were derided by authorities, with emails concerning them reading like a high-school teachers mark-up of an essay: “This report does not provide the who, what, when, where, how,” said one report. Another analyst remarked, “I see nothing to be gained by releasing this report.”
So, the federal government has given itself power to infringe on the rights of the people in the name of counter-terrorism. But, the federal government admits that some of the most expensive tools in this fight are using their authority to produce things unrelated to terrorism, including “shoddy work” and seeming rewrites of already published intelligence.
More than likely, most of the intelligence gathered by these centers that was actually usable, was intelligence that could have easily been used by local and state law enforcement without the counter-terrorism labels. In other words, the fusion centers’ work isn’t unique or useful.
No matter what agency was investigating you, and for what crime, you have rights. If you’ve been charged with a crime, let us put you in touch with a local defense attorney for a free consultation.
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