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Security says it is outdated, inaccurate and too focused on information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.
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