XPost: alt.conspiracy, alt.america, alt.internet   
   From: luken@frontiernet.net   
      
   The Department of Homeland Security has spent hundreds of millions of   
   dollars on a network of 77 so-called “fusion” intelligence centers that   
   have collected personal information on some U.S. citizens — including   
   detailing the “reading habits” of American Muslims — while producing   
   “shoddy” reports and making no contribution to thwarting any terrorist   
   plots,  a new Senate report states.   
      
   The “ fusion centers,” created under President George W. Bush and   
   expanded under President Barack Obama, consist of  special   teams of   
   federal , state and local officials collecting and analyzing   
   intelligence on suspicious activities throughout the country.  They have   
   been hailed by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as “one of   
   the centerpieces”  of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts.   
      
   But a bipartisan report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on   
   Investigations released Tuesday concludes that the centers “often   
   produced irrelevant” and "useless” intelligence reports. “There were   
   times when it was, ‘What a bunch of crap is coming through,’” one senior   
   Homeland Security official is quoted as saying .   
      
   A spokesman for Napolitano immediately blasted the report as “out of   
   date, inaccurate and misleading.” Another Homeland Security official,   
   who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the department   
   has made improvements to the fusion centers and that the skills of   
   officials working in them are “evolving and maturing.”   
      
   While dismissing the value of much of the fusion centers’ work, the   
   Senate panel  found  evidence of what  it called  “troubling” reports by   
   some  centers that may have violated the civil liberties and privacy of   
   U.S. citizens.  The evidence cited in the report could fuel a continuing   
   controversy over claims that the FBI and some local police departments,   
   notably New York City’s, have spied on American Muslims without a   
   justifiable law enforcement reason for doing so. Among the examples in   
   the report:   
      
        One fusion center drafted a report on a list of reading suggestions   
   prepared by a Muslim community group, titled “Ten Book Recommendations   
   for Every Muslim.” The report noted that four of the authors were listed   
   in a terrorism database, but a Homeland Security reviewer in Washington   
   chastised the fusion center,  saying, “We cannot report on books and   
   other writings” simply because the authors are  in a terrorism database.   
   “The writings themselves are protected by the First Amendment unless you   
   can establish that something in the writing indicates planning or   
   advocates violent or other criminal activity.”   
        A fusion center in California prepared a report about a speaker at   
   a Muslim center in Santa Cruz who was giving a daylong motivational   
   talk—and a lecture on “positive parenting.” No link to terrorism was   
   alleged.   
        Another fusion center drafted a  report on a U.S. citizen speaking   
   at a local mosque that speculated that --  since the speaker had been   
   listed in a terrorism data base — he may have been  attempting “to   
   conduct fundraising and recruiting” for a foreign terrorist group.   
      
   “The number of things that scare me about this report are almost too   
   many to write into this (form),” a Homeland Security reviewer wrote   
   after analyzing the report. The reviewer noted that “the nature of this   
   event is constitutionally protected activity (public speaking, freedom   
   of assembly, freedom of religion.)”   
      
   The Senate panel found 40 reports -- including the three listed above --   
   that were drafted at fusion centers by Homeland Security officials, then   
   later “nixed” by officials in Washington after reviewers “raised   
   concerns the documents potentially endangered the civil liberties or   
   legal privacy protections of the U.S. persons they mentioned.”   
      
   Despite being scrapped, however, the Senate report concluded that “these   
   reports should not have been drafted at all.” It also noted that the   
   reports were stored at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington,   
   D.C., for  a year or more after they had been  canceled —a potential   
   violation of the U.S. Privacy Act, which prohibits federal agencies from   
   storing information on U.S. citizens’ First Amendment-protected   
   activities if there is no valid reason to do so.   
      
   The report said the retention of these reports also appears to   
   contradict Homeland Security’s own guidelines, which state that once a   
   determination is made that a document should not be retained, “The U.S   
   person identifying information is to be destroyed immediately.”   
      
   The investigation was led by the Republican staff of the subcommittee   
   but the 107-page report was approved by chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich   
   and ranking minority Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.  It stated that much basic   
   information about the fusion centers – including exactly how much they   
   cost the federal government — was difficult to obtain. Although the   
   fusion centers are overseen by Homeland Security, they are funded   
   primarily through grants to local governments by the Federal Emergency   
   Management Agency. Although Homeland Security “was unable to provide an   
   accurate tally,” the panel estimated the federal dollars spent on the   
   centers between 2003 and 2011 at between $289 million and $1.4 billion.   
      
   The panel’s criticism of the fusion centers was shared in part by   
   Michael Leiter, the former director of the National National   
   Counter-Terrorism Center and now an NBC analyst. “Since 9/11, the growth   
   of state and local fusion centers has been exponential and regrettably   
   in many instances it has produced an ill-planned mishmash rather than a   
   true national system that is well-integrated with existing organizations   
   like the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces,” Leiter wrote in an email   
   when asked about the report.   
      
   In its response to the Senate panel , Homeland Security said that the   
   canceled reports could still be retained “for administrative purposes   
   such as audit and oversight.”   
      
   The report cited multiple examples of what it called fusion center   
   reports that had little if any value to counterterrorism efforts.   
      
   One fusion center report cited described how a certain model car had   
   folding rear seats to the trunk, a feature that it said could be useful   
   to human traffickers. This prompted a Homeland Security reviewer to note   
   that such folding rear seats are “featured on MANY different  makes and   
   model of vehicles” and “there is nothing of any intelligence value in   
   this report.”   
      
   Another fusion center report, entitled “Possible Drug Smuggling   
   Activity,”  recounted the experiences of two state wildlife officials   
   who spotted a pair of men  in a bass boat “operating suspiciously” in   
   the body of water off the U.S.-Mexico border. The report noted that the   
   fishermen “avoided eye contact” and that their boat appeared to be low   
   in the water, “as if it were laden with cargo” with high winds and   
      
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