By Michael German, Senior Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:32pm
The official verdict is finally in, thanks to a congressional report out today: state and local law enforcement intelligence “fusion centers” funded by the Department of Homeland Security are failing to safeguard both our constitutional rights and our security.
Back in 2007, when the ACLU began investigating the growth of these centers, there was little public information available about where these centers were, who was in charge of them, who participated, what information they collected or what they did with it. Our first report highlighted “excessive secrecy” as one of the major problems with fusion centers, recognizing that a lack of public accountability has too often in the past allowed police intelligence operations to turn their focus away from suspected criminals and toward political activists, racial and religious minorities, and immigrant communities. In a 2008 follow-up report, we chronicled many of the early signs of trouble in these institutions.
By Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel, ACLU Center for Justice at 2:35pm
Last week, the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report criticizing the Department of Homeland Security for its failure to ensure proper oversight over state and local “fusion centers.” Shortly thereafter, the committee issued a statement denouncing the report and lauding fusion centers as playing a “significant role in many recent terrorism cases.”
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:25pm
Yesterday NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting released the results of an investigation into "suspicious activity" reports (SAR) at the Mall of America in Minnesota. What they found was that the private "counterterrorism" guards at the mall had stopped and questioned on average up to 1,200 people each year, and that at least 125 people were the subject of SAR, many of which were forwarded to the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or the Minnesota fusion center.
