http://endthelie.com/2012/10/03/senate-panel-dhs-fusion-centers-produce-predominantly-useless-information-and-a-bunch-of-crap/#axzz2EDtIv73s
By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the
Lie
A
newly released report from the Senate’s bipartisan Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reveals
that the claims of Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of the behemoth Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), surrounding the United States’ so-called fusion
centers are nothing short of outright lies.
This is far from surprising to me
since in September of last year a report from the Homeland Security Policy
Institute revealed the fact that information
received from fusion centers “often lacks value.”
Fusion centers are also involved in rolling out nationwide
biometrics systems as well as centralized biometrics databases
coordinated by the federal government.
In the past, Napolitano has claimed
that fusion centers are “one of the centerpieces of our counterterrorism
strategy,” while reality paints a completely different picture.
The Senate panel, which combed over
80,000 fusion center documents, determined that they could not “identify a
contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist
plot.”
Furthermore, unnamed DHS officials
told the senate panel that fusion centers put out “predominantly useless
information” and “a bunch of crap,” according to Danger Room.
This is somewhat surprising coming
from any DHS official given that their official risk assessments have a
tendency to wildly underestimate actual risks, but perhaps even DHS
employees are beginning to see the absurdity of these fusion centers.
Hilariously, an internal assessment
from 2010 – which DHS unsurprisingly did not share with Congress – reveals that
a whopping third of all fusion centers do not even have defined procedures for
sharing intelligence, which is “one of the prime reasons for their existence.”
Even more troubling is the fact that
the Senate has found that at least four fusion centers identified by DHS “do
not exist.”
The sad reality is that the Senate’s
finding, as noted above, is not in any way shocking. For instance, the
Constitution Project (TCP), a national, bipartisan think tank determined, “without
effective limits on data collection, storage and use, fusion centers can pose
serious risks to civil liberties, including rights of free speech, free assembly,
freedom of religion, racial and religious equality, privacy and the right to be
free from unnecessary government intrusion.”
Unfortunately, no effective limits
have been put in place and even with that unchecked power the fusion centers
have not been able actually accomplish anything meaningful.
Even after allegedly putting some
privacy protections in place in 2009, the Senate panel found “DHS continued to
store troubling intelligence reports from fusion centers on U.S. persons,
possibly in violation of the Privacy Act.”
In reviewing fusion center
intelligence reports, the Senate found that a third either “lacked any useful
information” on terrorist plots or alternatively represented a potential
violation of civil liberties.
In other cases, reports sat around
for months until the information contained in them was “obsolete” by the time
they were actually published.
Unsurprisingly, much of the
information produced by fusion centers does not even relate to terrorism. In
fact, “most information” from fusion centers was actually dealing with ordinary
crime, such as “drug, cash or human smuggling,” according to the Senate’s
findings.
While fusion centers are supposed to
only analyze and spread information, they have been found to be collecting
information as well like a leaflet put out by the Mongols motorcycle club in
California that instructed members to be “courteous” to police.
Another piece of clearly useless
information collected by the centers was a notation which said that a U.S.
citizen was speaking at a mosque, “without any derogatory information about
either the citizen or the mosque,” Danger Room notes.
Five of the fusion centers studied
by the Senate spent their federal terrorism grant money on various surveillance
tools like “hidden ‘shirt button’ cameras” and cellphone tracking systems.
Records show that fusion centers
also spent a great deal of funds on “dozens of flat-screen TVs” and even cars,
sometimes claiming that Chevrolet Tahoes were acquired to help “respond to
chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) incidents.”
Oddly enough, some fusion center
money was used to purchase equipment for medical examiners, clearly far from
the intended use of the funds.
Ultimately, the Senate panel
discovered that DHS officials were “unable to produce a complete and accurate
tally of the expense of its support for fusion centers.”
The cost estimates range wildly from
$289 million to $1.4 billion, showing that Homeland Security really has no clue
how much money they’re spending on “one of the centerpieces of our
counterterrorism strategy,” which actually fails to accomplish anything.
Danger Room notes that one of the major issues in fusion centers is
attempting to conduct rapid analysis while still honoring our civil liberties,
although they note that this would only be problematic “if the fusion enters
were actually uncovering terrorist plots,” which they clearly aren’t.
Of the 610 draft reports produced
between April 2009 and April 2010 reviewed by the Senate, only 94 were actually
related to terrorism in any way with 188 of them being “cancelled” either
because they did not contain “useful information” or “for running afoul of
departmental guidelines meant to guard against civil liberties or Privacy Act
protections.”
“Of the 94 reports most were
published months after they were received; more than a quarter appeared to
duplicate a faster intelligence-sharing process administered by the FBI; and
some were based on information drawn from publicly available websites or dated
public reports,” the Senate panel found.
One of the more hilarious cases is a
November 2009 report which stated that Anwar al-Awlaki praised the Fort Hood
shooting a whopping four days after it was reported by the Los Angeles Times.
It just gets worse when we learn that “a subsequent performance review for the
[report's] author cited this report as a signature accomplishment.”
Amazingly, one third of the fusion
centers investigated by the Senate did not even “mention terrorism in their
mission statements.”
Instead of actually engaging in
counterterrorism activities, the fusion centers just take federal grant money
and use it to work with local law enforcement in their regular activities while
claiming that terrorists “would commit precursor crimes before an attack.”
Personally, I think that the people
working at the fusion centers likely have come to the realization that
terrorism isn’t anywhere near the threat it’s made out to be. This would make
their lack of interest in terrorism completely understandable.
When the fusion centers actually do
try to fight terrorism, they end up falling flat on their faces.
For instance, in the case of the Illinois water pump
allegedly hacked by Russians, they were forced to quickly backtrack
and now has resulted in DHS looking even more foolish
than they have previously.
“Another involved the Arizona fusion
center, which mistakenly reported in January 2011 that the would-be assassin of
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was connected to an ‘anti-Semitic, anti-government
group’ called American Renaissance,” reports Danger Room. “The ‘group’
in question is actually a newsletter, and the fusion center’s director had to
publicly state the analysis shouldn’t have been released.”
The most famous incident is likely
the so-called MIAC report which claimed that supporters of Ron
Paul and libertarians in general are, essentially, linked to the “modern
militia movement” and likely violent extremists.
Amazingly, the Senate report would
not go nearly as far as it should in failing to recommend the closure of fusion
centers. The Senate panel argued for greater oversight and clarified mission
statements, which, in my opinion, is going to do nothing to actually make
fusion centers worth the money.
The simple fact is that we do not
have the money to spend, the terrorist threat doesn’t exist and there is no legitimate
need for the fusion centers and the Senate’s findings make that painfully
clear.
To read the full report, please
visit Public Intelligence.
Did I forget anything or miss any
errors? Would you like to make me aware of a story or subject to cover? Or
perhaps you want to bring your writing to a wider audience? Feel free to
contact me at admin@EndtheLie.com with your concerns,
tips, questions, original writings, insults or just about anything that may
strike your fancy.
No comments:
Post a Comment