Thread: Senate report savages terrorism 'fusion centers' as useless

Senate report savages terrorism 'fusion centers' as useless

October 2, 2012
Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, California Watch

The nation’s vast network of anti-terrorism “fusion centers” for law enforcement have produced shoddy, untimely and often useless intelligence reports that have done little to keep the U.S. safer, a scathing U.S. Senate report concludes.

The 141-page report, a copy of which was obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, parent organization of California Watch, identified problems with nearly every significant aspect of the Department of Homeland Security’s more than 70 fusion centers, which were designed for law enforcement to coordinate their intelligence gathering.

The report marks one of the most blistering indictments to date of the Department of Homeland Security’s domestic intelligence operation. The department, investigators conclude, “has not attempted to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the value federal taxpayers have received for that investment.”

Fusion centers were created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as the best way to get local, state and federal officials to share terrorism-related information, speak with each other and “connect the dots” of terrorist plots before they happened.

Many of the conclusions in the new U.S. Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee probe mirror a CIR report last year on the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence and analysis office, which supports the fusion centers. The report found that intelligence and analysis often produced "intelligence spam" that relied on stale information and provided little valuable analysis, and which was widely ignored by federal counterterrorism officials.

In the rush to stand-up the department’s intelligence arm, the short-staffed office relied heavily on contractors, such as Booz Allen Hamilton and General Dynamics, which reaped millions of federal dollars.

In the new Senate report, investigators found that with the lack of oversight, fusion centers spent money wildly, including a San Diego fusion center that bought 55 flat-screen televisions at a cost of $75,000 to watch the news and display calendars.

Some fusion centers only exist on paper. For instance, taxpayers have shelled out millions of dollars in federal grants for a planned Philadelphia fusion center, but Department of Homeland Security dollars for it have since been frozen, and as of August this year, "the center still did not physically exist," according to the report.

All told, Homeland Security officials couldn’t account accurately for how much money has been spent on fusion centers, offering an estimate that ranged from $289 million to $1.4 billion, a billion-dollar swing.

The investigation also found that the department only required intelligence officials to take a five-day course before they were sent to the fusion centers to write reports on sensitive domestic intelligence, often concerning people in the U.S.

Officials who routinely wrote useless reports or used information that endangered the privacy rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens didn’t face reprimand or punishment, according to the bipartisan report. The report noted that the San Diego fusion center had purchased a covert video recorder with a "shirt-button camera." Key capabilities for the fusion centers "do not include covert or surreptitious intelligence gathering," the report said.

The investigation – which was led by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. – found that even Homeland Security officials questioned the value of fusion center reports citing inadequate training and an emphasis on quantity over quality.

Harold “Skip” Vandover, a former official who oversaw reporting, told investigators that while his unit produced intelligence he was proud of, “There were times when it was, ‘What a bunch of crap is coming through.’ ”

“You can barely teach people what the word (‘intelligence’) means” in a week, he told investigators. “All the problems we saw – are all linked right straight back to training.”

Department of Homeland Security officials pushed back hard on the report, calling it “out of date, inaccurate and misleading,” and saying that they have addressed or corrected many of the problems outlined in the report. They said that fusion centers help law enforcement who face terrorist threats or criminal activity by providing classified and unclassified information from the federal government.

Matthew Chandler, a Homeland Security Department spokesman, said the report misunderstands the role of federal government in supporting fusion centers and overlooks benefits to federal, state and local agencies.

“Homeland security begins with hometown security, and fusion centers play a vital role in keeping communities safe all across America,” he said.

Born out of the intelligence units of major metropolitan police departments and state emergency agencies or started from scratch, fusion centers helped fuel the technology-driven, intelligence-led policing strategy now in fashion.

Lawmakers in 2007 designated the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the lead federal partner to coordinate with and support state and local fusion centers with funding, technology and training. The department also currently has its own officials in 62 fusion centers.

Scores of reports were spiked because they contained information that was old, useless or ran “afoul” of privacy and civil liberties protections. Those published often lacked terrorism-related information or showed up months after the information would have been relevant.

Yet in championing fusion centers, Homeland Security officials have overstated results while withholding evaluations from Congress on the program's progress, the report found.

Many of the “success stories” the department highlights have to do with everyday crimes like car thefts and drug activity.

One of the most frequently cited examples involves the case of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant accused in 2009 of planning to blow up a New York City subway. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said a Colorado fusion center played a “key role” in “fusing” information, but Senate investigators concluded much of the work “could have – hopefully, would have – occurred absent a fusion center.”

Other times, reports have been simply wrong, such as an Illinois fusion center’s analysis that a Russian hacker stole usernames and passwords to gain access to a local water district’s control system. In fact, a technician was working on the system while on vacation in Russia. He told The Associated Press that a phone call to him would have defused the situation.

Investigators pointed to an early 2011 memo from the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center announcing a “strong suspicion” that gunman Jared Loughner was tied to the American Renaissance. This "group" amounted to little more than a newsletter, however, to which Loughner didn’t subscribe. The intel memo nonetheless suggested Loughner shot Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 other people because Giffords was “the first Jewish female” elected to a high political position, which is not accurate.

Investigators concluded that Congress shares some of the blame, as lawmakers on dozens of committees and subcommittees have called hundreds of hearings, briefings and site visits without fully uncovering or examining the problems that have plagued fusion centers and the department’s intelligence program.

The report recommends Congress and the department revisit support of fusion centers, improve oversight of federal grants to the program, assess information sharing and strengthen protections of civil liberties in intelligence reports.

Mike Sena, president of the National Fusion Center Association, pointed to their role in helping provide accurate and timely information on the recent shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin and to investigate the backgrounds of suspects. Bringing together local, state and federal officials allows budget-strapped agencies to pool resources.

"We look at terrorism as a criminal activity," Sena said. "Oftentimes when we do investigations, the activity that was involved was not somebody out there building the bomb. It was individuals who were involved in criminal activity to raise funds for terrorist organizations.”
The fusion association lobbies for more federal funding to state and local agencies, but investigators learned it's a private organization "funded by corporations who seek to do business with fusion centers," including Microsoft, the report states.

Senate report savages terrorism 'fusion centers' as useless | California Watch

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Wisconsin fusion centers to launch Web site in support of awareness program

Tue, 2012-10-02 07:58 AM By: Mark Rockwell

Two information fusion centers in Wisconsin will launch a new Web site aimed at getting tips from the public for local police and DHS, as the agency expands its “If you see something, say something” awareness program in the state.

The effort was announced on Sept. 28 as DHS secretary Janet Napolitano as she unveiled new “If you see something, say something” activities in the state.

The Wisconsin effort, said Napolitano, is the fifth time she has personally announced a new partner in the initiative, joining Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, state attorney general J.B Van Hollen, Major General Donald Dunbar and law enforcement and homeland security officials at a ceremony in Madison.

The awareness campaign encourages citizens to speak up if they see something that seems out of place and provides information about how to report suspicious activities. Wisconsin, said Napolitano, will take a number of innovative steps to help deliver messages to its more than 5.7 million residents, including the new fusion center Web site.

With the help of the Milwaukee Police Department, Napolitano said the state’s two fusion centers plan to launch a new website, WiWatch.org, where additional information about the campaign is posted and where residents can report suspicious activity.

Wisconsin’s campaign is being coordinated by the state’s two fusion centers – the Southeastern Wisconsin Threat Analysis Center (STAC) in Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Statewide Information Center (WSIC) in Madison, said Gov. Walker in a statemnt. Both fusion centers serve local, county and state public safety customers by sharing intelligence, offering training on the behaviors and indicators of terrorism, protecting Wisconsin critical infrastructure through risk assessments, and analyzing national threat information as it relates to Wisconsin, he said.

Additionally, Napolitano said “If You See Something, Say Something” messages will appear on digital billboards on major highways and thruways across the state, including I-94, WIS 57, and WIS 164, from Oshkosh to Westbend to Jefferson and a variety of other cities, according to Napolitano. Awareness program posters will also be hung in a variety of venues around the state to engage a host of sectors and communities throughout the state. In Madison, said Napolitano, posters with photos of the state capitol will be on display, as well as posters with images of Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Pictures of Miller Park and Summerfest will also accompany these materials in Milwaukee, she added.

Television and radio public service announcements are also set to air later this year.

Wisconsin fusion centers to launch Web site in support of awareness program | Government Security News

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Intelligence effort named citizens, not terrorists

Oct 3, 2:36 AM (ET)
By MATT APUZZO and EILEEN SULLIVAN


WASHINGTON (AP) - A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone's ability to control.

What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found.

The lengthy, bipartisan report is a scathing evaluation of what the Department of Homeland Security has held up as a crown jewel of its security efforts. The report underscores a reality of post-9/11 Washington: National security programs tend to grow, never shrink, even when their money and manpower far surpass the actual subject of terrorism. Much of this money went for ordinary local crime-fighting.

Disagreeing with the critical conclusions of the report, Homeland Security says it is outdated, inaccurate and too focused on information produced by the program, ignoring benefits to local governments from their involvement with federal intelligence officials.

Because of a convoluted grants process set up by Congress, Homeland Security officials don't know how much they have spent in their decade-long effort to set up so-called fusion centers in every state. Government estimates range from less than $300 million to $1.4 billion in federal money, plus much more invested by state and local governments. Federal funding is pegged at about 20 percent to 30 percent.
Despite that, Congress is unlikely to pull the plug. That's because, whether or not it stops terrorists, the program means politically important money for state and local governments.

A Senate Homeland Security subcommittee reviewed more than 600 unclassified reports over a one-year period and concluded that most had nothing to do with terrorism. The panel's chairman is Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

"The subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot," the report said.
When fusion centers did address terrorism, they sometimes did so in ways that infringed on civil liberties. The centers have made headlines for circulating information about Ron Paul supporters, the ACLU, activists on both sides of the abortion debate, war protesters and advocates of gun rights.

One fusion center cited in the Senate investigation wrote a report about a Muslim community group's list of book recommendations. Others discussed American citizens speaking at mosques or talking to Muslim groups about parenting.

No evidence of criminal activity was contained in those reports. The government did not circulate them, but it kept them on government computers. The federal government is prohibited from storing information about First Amendment activities not related to crimes.

"It was not clear why, if DHS had determined that the reports were improper to disseminate, the reports were proper to store indefinitely," the report said.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Matthew Chandler called the report "out of date, inaccurate and misleading." He said that it focused entirely on information being produced by fusion centers and did not consider the benefit the involved officials got receiving intelligence from the federal government.

The report is as much an indictment of Congress as it is the Homeland Security Department. In setting up the department, lawmakers wanted their states to decide what to spend the money on. Time and again, that setup has meant the federal government has no way to know how its security money is being spent.
Inside Homeland Security, officials have long known there were problems with the reports coming out of fusion centers, the report shows.

"You would have some guys, the information you'd see from them, you'd scratch your head and say, 'What planet are you from?'" an unidentified Homeland Security official told Congress.

Until this year, the federal reports officers received five days of training and were never tested or graded afterward, the report said.

States have had criminal analysis centers for years. But the story of fusion centers began in the frenzied aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The 9/11 Commission urged better collaboration among government agencies. As officials realized that a terrorism tip was as likely to come from a local police officer as the CIA, fusion centers became a hot topic.
But putting people together to share intelligence proved complicated. Special phone and computer lines had to be installed. The people reading the reports needed background checks. Some information could only be read in secure areas, which meant construction projects.

All of that cost money.

Meanwhile, federal intelligence agencies were under orders from Congress to hire more analysts. That meant state and local agencies had to compete for smart counterterrorism thinkers. And federal training for local analysts wasn't an early priority.

Though fusion centers receive money from the federal government, they are operated independently. Counterterrorism money started flowing to states in 2003. But it wasn't until late 2007 that the Bush administration told states how to run the centers.

State officials soon realized there simply wasn't that much local terrorism-related intelligence. Terrorist attacks didn't happen often, but police faced drugs, guns and violent crime every day. Normal criminal information started moving through fusion centers.

Under federal law, that was fine. When lawmakers enacted recommendations of the 9/11 Commission in 2007, they allowed fusion centers to study "criminal or terrorist activity." The law was co-sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman, the driving forces behind the creation of Homeland Security.
Five years later, Senate investigators found, terrorism is often a secondary focus.

"Many fusion centers lacked either the capability or stated objective of contributing meaningfully to the federal counterterrorism mission," the Senate report said. "Many centers didn't consider counterterrorism an explicit part of their mission, and federal officials said some were simply not concerned with doing counterterrorism work."

When Janet Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary in 2009, the former Arizona governor embraced the idea that fusion centers should look beyond terrorism. Testifying before Congress that year, she distinguished fusion centers from the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces that are the leading investigative and analytical arms of the domestic counterterrorism effort.

"A JTTF is really focused on terrorism and terrorism-related investigations," she said. "Fusion centers are almost everything else."

Congress, including the committee that authored the report, supports that notion. And though the report recommends the Senate reconsider the amount of money it spends on fusion centers, that seems unlikely.
"Congress and two administrations have urged DHS to continue or even expand its support of fusion centers, without providing sufficient oversight to ensure the intelligence from fusion centers is commensurate with the level of federal investment," the report said.

And following the release of the report, Homeland Security officials indicated their continued strong support for the program.

My Way News - Intelligence effort named citizens, not terrorists

Congressional homeland security leaders defend fusion centers

Thu, 2012-10-04 07:43 AM
By: Mark Rockwell
gsnmagazine

The leaders of the House and Senate homeland security committees defended DHS’s fusion centers in the wake of a scathing Senate subcommittee report calling the intelligence facilities an ineffective, unbridled, sometimes inept cash drain.

Both Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King (R-NY) rose in defense of the centers on Oct. 3, just after the report was released by the U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Ranking subcommittee member Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who sponsored the report, said it found DHS efforts to engage state and local intelligence fusion centers hasn’t yielded significant useful information to support federal counter-terrorism intelligence efforts. The report also said the centers produced information that was sometimes “shoddy” and “uneven,” and which possibly violated citizens’ civil rights.

“I strongly disagree with the report’s core assertion that ‘fusion centers have been unable to meaningfully contribute to federal counterterrorism efforts,’” said Lieberman. “This statement is not supported by the examples presented in the report and is contrary to the public record, which shows fusion centers have played a significant role in many recent terrorism cases and have helped generate hundreds of tips and leads that have led to current FBI investigations.

King concurred, saying that oversight of the centers, which the report said was lacking, was a laudable goal. He added, however, the report wasn’t an accurate picture of the centers.

“Certainly, information sharing and the fusion center network are worthy topics of Congressional oversight,” he said on Oct. 3. “However, I agree with chairman Joe Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins (R-ME) that the subcommittee report issued this week paints with too broad a brush an incomplete picture that fails to recognize many of the important contributions that fusion centers have made in securing our Homeland,” he said.

Lieberman cited three cases in which information from fusion centers has played a key role, including the 2009 “Raleigh Jihad” case involving Daniel Patrick Boyd and six others who planned to attack Marine Base Quantico in Virginia. Lieberman said the North Carolina fusion center partnered with the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force on the investigation.

The Massachusetts state fusion center, he said, was credited with a “significant contribution” to corralling Rezwan Ferdaus the homegrown violent Islamist extremist arrested in 2010 in Boston for his plans to attack the Pentagon and the Capitol with small remote control planes with explosives strapped to them.

The Washington state fusion center coordinated FBI, state and local law enforcement to head up the investigation into the 2011 Seattle military recruiting center plot. Two homegrown violent Islamist extremists were arrested in that case for planning to attack the military recruiting center. The initial lead in this case came from a Seattle Police Department informant, he said.

“The report does include valuable findings in some areas,” Lieberman added, however. “It cites examples of inappropriate use of homeland security grant funds and accurately notes that FEMA has struggled to account for how homeland security grant funds are allocated and used, a longstanding concern of mine.”

Lieberman contended that without fusion centers, law enforcement and intelligence agencies may not be able to “connect the dots” or break through the “information silos” that sometimes hamper federal, state and local agencies.

The report, he said, has numerous holes and skewed conclusions, including making broad assertions about the value of fusion centers but only examines one narrow aspect of fusion center operations, the formal intelligence reporting process.

It doesn’t look at DHS support through training and access to classified networks and doesn’t consider finished intelligence products produced by fusion center personnel, or at the liaison officer programs that many centers have established to build ties with local agencies in their state or region.

The FBI’s role in supporting the centers with intelligence analysts is also overlooked, said Lieberman, as well as the importance of the flow of information from federal agencies to the state and local level through fusion centers, which has significantly strengthened the ability of frontline law enforcement officers to detect and prevent potential plots and made our nation safer.

He said it also didn’t acknowledge progress made by what he said was “the vast majority of the fusion centers” in the last few years. “Some fusion centers are still underdeveloped, but the vast majority effectively partner with federal agencies in preventing terrorism and addressing other important national security and public safety missions,” he said.

Congressional homeland security leaders defend fusion centers | Government Security News

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