Nobody much likes fusion centers, set up by state and local public safety units after 9/11 to get around what they saw as the FBI's hording of domestic terrorism information.
Except, of course, state and local officials, and some boosters in Congress, notably Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wa.
Today the House is scheduled to take up a Reichert bill (HR 6098) to boost federal grants to state, local and tribal governments to gather and analyze terrorism-related intelligence.
Wait a minute, says the ACLU. The civil liberties organization plans to release a report, also on Tuesday, questioning whether fusion centers have overstepped their bounds on information collection and dissemination.
"There's nothing wrong with the government seeking to do a better job of properly sharing legitimately acquired information about law enforcement investigations -- indeed, that is one of the things that 9/11 tragically showed is very much needed," the report's executive summary states.
"But in a democracy, the collection and sharing of intelligence information--especially information about American citizens and other residents--need to be carried out with the utmost care. That is because more and more, the amount of information available on each one of us is enough to assemble a very detailed portrait of our lives. And because security agencies are moving toward using such portraits to profile how 'suspicious' we look."
An ACLU media teleconference on fusion centers is scheduled for 1 pm.
But terrorism expert John Rollins, who served as former Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge's chief of staff for intelligence, wonders if the ACLU's fears are overblown, or at least premature.
The fusion centers really aren't ready for prime-time domestic spying, he suggests.
"There are a couple of ways to look at the issue," Rollins told me. "The first is that the centers are efficiently organized and capable of undertaking domestic intelligence collection activities -- they are not.
"Second, nefarious intentions are afoot by the leaders within these centers with the desire to sacrifice civil liberty protections in the name of thwarting a possible terrorist attack -- I don't believe this is the case."
But there's also no doubt, Rollins said, that mistakes have been made, by overzealous state and local police. (Maryland comes immediately to mind.)
"The lack of a clear national strategy and undefined federal-state expectations, roles, and responsibilities," he said, "has led to instances where state and local employees have drifted outside the bounds of acceptable law enforcement activities."
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