72 State Fusion Centers Feed Information to the FBI's 'Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative'
Understanding the Mechanics of the Police State
By Michael Hampton, Homeland StupidityMarch 27, 2010
“People don’t know what fusion centers are,” says Catherine Bleish, who was the opening speaker at the 2010 New Hampshire Liberty Forum on March 19.
Fusion centers were created after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a way for local and state law enforcement agencies to share terrorism related information with the federal government, and vice versa. The idea quickly ran into problems, first among them the fact that there simply isn’t enough terrorist activity to justify the concept. Instead of shutting down as pointless, fusion centers gradually began expanding into sharing information about all crimes. Fusion center activity over the years has also raised concerns about government surveillance of legally protected political activity.
Bleish, who was led into becoming an activist by the 2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign, said she was informed of a report published by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, leaked in March 2009, which stated among other things that people with Gadsden flag and Ron Paul bumper stickers could be militia members or potential terrorists. Bleish, who is the executive director of the Liberty Restoration Project, spearheaded further investigation and activism, eventually leading to MIAC retracting the report.
“MIAC is a Department of Homeland Security fusion center,” she said during her speech. “These institutions are doing a lot of damage to the relationship between the general public and the law enforcement community.”
Bleish also runs Operation Defuse, a project to inform the public about the nature and activities of fusion centers and how those activities contribute to the federalization and militarization of law enforcement.
The New Hampshire Liberty Forum is an annual conference held by the Free State Project, a movement to bring 20,000 activists to New Hampshire to work toward reducing the size, scope and power of government and increasing individual liberty and responsibility. The project has signed over 10,000 participants, and over 800 have already moved. The Liberty Forum, and the project’s summer camping event, PorcFest, allow people undecided about the project to see the state firsthand and observe and participate in local activism.
Map of Fusion Centers as of December 2007What's Wrong With Fusion Centers - Executive Summary
ACLUOriginally Published on December 5, 2007
A new institution is emerging in American life: Fusion Centers. These state, local and regional institutions were originally created to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism intelligence among different state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. Though they developed independently and remain quite different from one another, for many the scope of their mission has quickly expanded — with the support and encouragement of the federal government — to cover "all crimes and all hazards."
The types of information they seek for analysis has also broadened over time to include not just criminal intelligence, but public and private sector data; and participation in these centers has grown to include not just law enforcement, but other government entities, the military and even select members of the private sector.
These new fusion centers, over 40 of which have been established around the country, raise very serious privacy issues at a time when new technology, government powers and zeal in the "war on terrorism" are combining to threaten Americans' privacy at an unprecedented level.
Moreover, there are serious questions about whether data fusion is an effective means of preventing terrorism in the first place, and whether funding the development of these centers is a wise investment of finite public safety resources. Yet federal, state and local governments are increasing their investment in fusion centers without properly assessing whether they serve a necessary purpose.
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.
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.
New institutions like fusion centers must be planned in a public, open manner, and their implications for privacy and other key values carefully thought out and debated. And like any powerful institution in a democracy, they must be constructed in a carefully bounded and limited manner with sufficient checks and balances to prevent abuse.
Unfortunately, the new fusion centers have not conformed to these vital requirements.
Since no two fusion centers are alike, it is difficult to make generalized statements about them. Clearly not all fusion centers are engaging in improper intelligence activities and not all fusion center operations raise civil liberties or privacy concerns. But some do, and the lack of a proper legal framework to regulate their activities is troublesome.
This report is intended to serve as a primer that explains what fusion centers are, and how and why they were created. It details potential problems fusion centers present to the privacy and civil liberties of ordinary Americans, including:
- Ambiguous Lines of Authority. The participation of agencies from multiple jurisdictions in fusion centers allows the authorities to manipulate differences in federal, state and local laws to maximize information collection while evading accountability and oversight through the practice of "policy shopping."
- Private Sector Participation. Fusion centers are incorporating private-sector corporations into the intelligence process, breaking down the arm's length relationship that protects the privacy of innocent Americans who are employees or customers of these companies, and increasing the risk of a data breach.
- Military Participation. Fusion centers are involving military personnel in law enforcement activities in troubling ways.
- Data Fusion = Data Mining. Federal fusion center guidelines encourage whole sale data collection and manipulation processes that threaten privacy.
- Excessive Secrecy. Fusion centers are hobbled by excessive secrecy, which limits public oversight, impairs their ability to acquire essential information and impedes their ability to fulfill their stated mission, bringing their ultimate value into doubt.
The information in this report provides a starting point from which individuals can begin to ask informed questions about the nature and scope of intelligence programs being conducted in their communities. The report concludes with a list of recommendations for Congress and state legislatures.
Austin, Texas Fusion Center is One of About 70 in the Nation
KVUE NewsOctober 21, 2010
Agencies across the state are working together to fight crime. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) held a dedication Thursday morning for what is known as a Fusion Center.
The center sits inside a building at the DPS headquarters complex in North Austin.
DPS allowed media inside for a rare look at how the agencies work together to solve crimes. Large screens and rows of computers fill one room after another at the center. Each room is dedicated to a type of intelligence gathering including border security and gang activity.
The purpose of a fusion center is to create a central location where local, state, and federal agencies can work together to share the information they have gathered about different crimes or threats, in particular terror threats or trends in organized crime.
“This is a great day for the State of Texas. It's going to make us safer," said Congressman Michael McCaul, R-Texas. "Fusion centers, sharing information, sharing intelligence is what is going to detect, deter and prevent a future terrorist attack.”McCaul is one of the heads of the Homeland Security Committee. He visited the Fusion Center on Thursday for its dedication. It is one of about 70 in the nation.
The center has actually been under development for about a year now. The dedication marks the official launch joining multiple state and local agencies.
A majority of the group was working during the recent shooting on the University of Texas campus, as well as during the suicide plane crash into the Echelon building earlier this year.
The Austin Police Department is part of the group working at the center. APD secured city approval in May to create a center within the complex to coincide with the fusion facility.
Money to fund the center comes from Homeland Security Grants.
Several rights groups have expressed concerns regarding a possible over-sharing of information. APD officials say they will allow watch groups certain access to oversee any potential concerns.
Combatting Homegrown Terrorism with Fusion Centers
The Washington IndependentSeptember 23, 2010
Secretary Janet Napolitano and other officials from the Department of Homeland Security testified today on the growing threat of homegrown terrorists and small-scale attacks.
There’s a growing chorus from the homeland security community on this trend, and Napolitano testified that although for many years Al Qaeda and its allies seemed to be waiting for the opportunity to stage an attack on the dramatic scale of 9/11, these days, a looser network of groups is more willing to resort to tactics like planting IEDs:
It is clear that the threat of al Qaeda-style terrorism is not limited to the al-Qaeda core group, or organizations that have close operational links to al Qaeda. While al Qaeda continues to threaten America directly, it also inspires its affiliates and other groups and individuals who share its violent ideology and seek to attack the United States claiming it is in the name of Islam – a claim that is widely rejected.One of the ways DHS is approaching this threat is by beefing up the country’s network of fusion centers — groups that fuse local law enforcement work with national-level intelligence. Napolitano has made the centers a major focus of the department’s FY11 grant cycle. The idea is, as Napolitano said today, is that
“In an environment where operatives may not have close links to international terrorist organizations – and where they may, in fact, be based within this country – these levels of law enforcement may be the first to notice something suspicious.”Fusion centers don’t have the strongest records of keeping their focus on international terrorist organizations, though. As G.W. Schulz reports for the Center for Investigative Reporting:
One of the nation’s oldest fusion centers, known as the El Paso Intelligence Center, accidentally caused a California couple that owns a flight training school to be falsely held at gunpoint by police for the second time. Twice now EPIC has failed to clean up incorrect data that led authorities to believe a plane owned by the pair was stolen.In Maryland, a fusion center and DHS ended up labeling a peace group as terrorists. Anti-abortion activists have also come under suspicion.
Despite these sorts of missteps, the number of fusion centers is only growing: there are currently 72 scattered across the country.
FBI Assembling Massive Database on Thousands of Americans
The Lookout via Yahoo News!December 20, 2010
The FBI is assembling a massive database on thousands of Americans, many of whom have not been accused of any crime, the Washington Post's Dana Priest and William Arkin report. The reporters' latest look at the country's ballooning national security system focuses on the role that local agencies -- often staffed by people with little to no counter-terrorism training -- have played in combating terrorism since 2001.
Here are five striking revelations in their piece:
- The FBI's Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative currently contains 161,948 suspicious activity files, into which authorities can put information they've gathered about the people at the center of the files: employment history, financial documents, phone numbers, photos. In many cases, the people in the files have not been accused of any crime but have attracted the suspicions of a local cop, FBI agent or even fellow citizen. The files have led to five arrests but no convictions, the FBI says. Some of the files are unclassified so that local police agencies and even businesses can submit reports on anyone they deem suspicious.
- The Department of Homeland Security does not know how much it spends in funding state fusion centers, which synthesize security information from all state agencies and feeds information to the FBI's "Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative." But since 2001, DHS has doled out $31 billion to states and localities for homeland-security initiatives.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura: Police State (Season 2, Episode 4): - Local officials at these fusion centers are tasked with understanding terrorism with little or no training. To fill the void, self-styled experts with fairly extreme views on the scope of the Muslim terrorist threat are asked to come in and train local authorities, the Post reports.
Expert Walid Shoebat told a group at the first annual South Dakota Fusion Center Conference in Sioux Falls this year that they should monitor local Muslim student groups and mosques and try to tap their phones. "You can find out a lot of information that way," he said.
National intelligence officials told the Post they preferred that people with "evidence-based" approaches to Islam were lecturing instead, but that no guidelines are in place to determine the qualifications of a given speaker. - The localities are often left without guidance from DHS, which can lead to confusion about the counter-terror activity they're supposed to be carrying out. Virginia's fusion center named historically black colleges as a "potential" terrorism hub, Maryland State Police infiltrated local groups that lobbied for bike lanes and human rights, and a contractor in Pennsylvania writing an intelligence bulletin flagged meetings of the Tea Party Patriots Coalition and environmental activists.
- Many states and towns are taking the unprecedented amounts of money handed out to fight terrorists and are using it instead to fight crime.
"We have our own terrorists, and they are taking lives every day," Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin, said.
NSA's $1.5 Billion Cyber-security Center in Utah is Under Way
Deseret News
January 6, 2011
Thursday's groundbreaking for a $1.5 billion National Security Agency data center is being billed as important in the short term for construction jobs and important in the long term for Utah's reputation as a technology center.
"This will bring 5,000 to 10,000 new jobs during its construction and development phase," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said on Wednesday. "Once completed, it will support 100 to 200 permanent high-paid employees."
Officially named the Utah Data Center, the facility's role in aggregating and verifying dizzying volumes of data for the intelligence community has already earned it the nickname "Spy Center." Its really long moniker is the Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center — the first in the nation's intelligence community.
A White House document identifies the Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative as addressing "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation, but one that we as a government or as a country are not adequately prepared to counter." The document details a number of technology-related countermeasures to the security threat.
Hatch said Utah was chosen for the project over 37 other locations. He characterized the cyber-security center as the "largest military construction project in recent memory."
Hatch said he promoted Utah's favorable energy costs, Internet infrastructure, thriving software industry and proximity to the Salt Lake City International Airport in the bid process that ended up with Camp Williams earning the data center.
The Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the project that is under contract to a joint venture between Big-D Construction in Salt Lake City, U.K.-based Balfour Beatty Construction and DPR Construction out of California.
"This project is going to give an opportunity for an awful lot of Utahns" who have seen construction jobs in Utah drop from 100,000 in 2008 to about 66,000 today, said Rob Moore, president and COO of Big-D and chairman of the Associated General Contractors in Utah. "My subcontractors, suppliers and vendors are very appreciative of the work that will be available on this project."
Grading work is already under way for the complex, which is scheduled to include 100,000 square feet for the data center and 900,000 square feet for technical support and administrative space. The center is designed to be capable of generating all of its own power through backup electrical generators and will have both fuel and water storage. Construction is designed to achieve environmentally significant LEED Silver certification.
"It is so unique and so intensive," Hatch said. "This will establish our state as one of the leading states for technology."
Most Domestic Intel Centers Lack Privacy Plans
Government ExecutiveOctober 18, 2010
The majority of state and local counterterrorism centers across the country do not have federally approved plans to ensure they are protecting the privacy rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens, raising concerns among privacy advocates that they lack proper oversight.
The issue reveals the tension between government efforts to collect and analyze intelligence inside the United States in order to prevent terrorist attacks and fears that innocent Americans and law-abiding groups are being improperly spied upon.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. government encouraged and funded a proliferation of domestic counterterrorism centers, commonly referred to as state and local homeland security fusion centers.
Although 72 centers now exist, only 28 have privacy and civil liberties plans approved by the Homeland Security Department, National Journal has learned. DHS serves as the lead federal agency coordinating and funding the centers.
To address the issue, DHS this year began restricting the ability of centers to use state homeland security grants until they have an approved privacy and civil liberties plan.
"We've been complaining about the lack of a governance structure over fusion centers for a few years now," Michael German, policy counsel for the ACLU and former FBI special agent, said in an interview.Tom Monahan, president of the National Fusion Center Association, said candidly that he shares the concerns of privacy groups like the ACLU. The association is a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Va., that represents the 72 fusion centers.
"That the process is taking too long is worrisome, and we'll be watching to see how effective DHS is in enforcing this requirement, particularly because having a written privacy policy is only a first step toward accountability," he added.
"We understand that concern. We absolutely agree with that concern," Monahan said. He said all fusion centers are required to have approved plans by March 31.Even though DHS has not approved privacy and civil liberties plans for most fusion centers, they still must comply with federal, state and local laws protecting people's rights, Monahan said.
"Much of the content of the privacy policy will simply be restating existing statutes, laws and regulations," he said. "However, it's imperative that it be codified and trained for everybody who works in the fusion centers because well-intentioned employees of the fusion centers could run afoul of the laws despite their well intentions."But a major challenge for centers to get approval from DHS has been that state and local laws can vary widely, Monahan added.
"There is no standardized language to construct this," said Monahan, who also directs the Southern Nevada Counter-Terrorism Center.He also said he does not believe it would be unrealistic for DHS to define a standard policy for fusion center privacy and civil liberties plans.
He added: "I'm not aware of any fusion center that hasn't even started. Everybody understands the importance of this; everybody understands the magnitude of not getting this done."
DHS spokesman Bobby Whithorne said DHS is working with fusion centers to meet the privacy requirements as quickly as possible.
"Over the past several years, federal, state, and local officials have worked tirelessly to ensure that robust privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties protections are integrated into fusion center policies," he said.The ACLU views the funding restriction by DHS as a good start, but believes more needs to be done.
"There is still no formal mechanism to oversee the fusion centers to ensure they are complying with these privacy policies, much less with other laws and regulations governing how law enforcement intelligence operations collect and handle personally-identifiable information," German said.
10 States (Each Part of the 10 FEMA Regions) Will Host National Guard Homeland Response Forces in the Name of Fighting Domestic Terrorism
One homeland response force unit will be based in each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency regions. Eight more units will be established in fiscal year 2012, Defense Department and National Guard Bureau officials said here today. The units are regional forces that will cross state lines when needed. The forces are part of a larger reorganization of the Defense Department's domestic consequence management enterprise recommended in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. This reorganization will ensure DoD has a robust ability to respond rapidly to domestic CBRNE incidents while recognizing the primary role that the governors play in controlling the response to incidents that occur in their states, Guard officials said. [Source]
The 10 Federal Regions:
- Region 1 - Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont
- Region 2 - New Jersey, New York, the territory of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands
- Region 3 - Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia
- Region 4 - Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, N. Carolina, S. Carolina and Tennessee
Region 5 - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin - Region 6 - Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas
- Region 7 - Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska
- Region 8 - Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming
- Region 9 - Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and the territories of Guam and American Samoa
- Region 10 - Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington
National Guard’s “Homeland Response Force” to Patrol Missouri, Nine Other States
Infowars.comJuly 15, 2010
Homeland Response Forces are descending upon Missouri and nine other states, where National Guard units will be the face of Federal power in the regions in the event of a terrorist attack or disaster.
The Sedalia Democrat reports that, along with Missouri, the state where the report was written, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, Utah and California will also host the National Guard Homeland Response Forces in the name of fighting terrorism. A unit will be placed within each of the regions established by FEMA, effectively implementing Federal powers at the state level premptively.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced Monday that Missouri will be one of 10 states to host National Guard Homeland Response Force units to help coordinate federal response to a terrorist attack.
According to the DoD announcement, the move came about following the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review — a congressionally mandated report put together every four years that highlights changes and challenges in national defense strategy. The 2010 report calls for improved coordination with civilian officials and providing resources for large-scale emergency response.
Other states that have announced participation in the program include Ohio.
This ties in with other recent reports of National Guard pitted against the domestic population. Infowars reporters recently exposed the National Guard involvement in Vigilant Guardian exercises training for terrorism & disaster during drills taking place in Chicago, Illinois. Video footage detailing this activity can be seen exclusively at PrisonPlanet.tv.
More shockingly, New York State has further announced the use of National Guard– merged with police– to aid in curbing the drug trade by intervening in local neighborhoods (despite the cynical fact that the CIA and other government agencies enable the importation of narcotics). The reports state that the National Guard will even scan vehicles for ‘guns and drugs’ using high-tech gamma rays.
This roll-out of National Guard is not new, but is being phased in at an accelerated pace. The publicly-presented mandate for these National Guard troops continues to revolve around the “disasters” and “terrorism” theme. However, the RAND Corp., an authoritative think tank that has proven close to the political agendas actually being implemented, has prepared the nation for riots within the United States and control of widespread domestic unrest. Their 2009 report “A Stability Police Force for the United States” [PDF] proposes a “hybrid” military/law enforcement unit that would respond to disasters, but effectively act as a Federally-controlled policing force implemented within the bounds of States under the guise of controlling domestic riots, preparing for terrorism and even training for overseas deployment.
The RAND report outlines in part:
“The USMS [U.S. Marshalls Service] hybrid option … provides an important nondeployed mission for the force: augmenting state and local agencies, many of which currently suffer from severe personnel shortages.”
“Furthermore, the USMS has the broadest law enforcement mandate of any U.S. law enforcement agency…. [This model] provides significant domestic policing and homeland security benefits by providing thousands of additional police officers across the United States.”
It is clear that while these events seemingly take place independently, and trickle out of the news without alarm, it is part of a larger plan to implement National Guard in duties never meant for them to undertake across the country, functioning, in essence, as another layer of “authority” over the states and inviduals, and taking power under the pretense of national disaster, terror attack, biological or chemical warfare, the drug war or general domestic unrest.
Notice the difference between a response to something that might happen utilizing the National Guard when needed vs. the premeditated deployment of the National Guard along the 10 regional lines drawn by FEMA to serve at any pretext that can be justified. I have included both a RAND Corp. study for integrated National Guard response following Hurricane Katrina as well as an Army report playing out the joint command structures and integrated control of National Guard between Federal and State authorities, all closely paralleling the rise of Fusion Centers to ‘protect the homeland.’
National Guard Homeland Response Force Coming to Missouri
SedaliaDemocrat.comJuly 13, 2010
The U.S. Department of Defense announced Monday that Missouri will be one of 10 states to host National Guard Homeland Response Force units to help coordinate federal response to a terrorist attack.
The Defense Department will place one unit in each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency regions. Missouri is located in Region VII, which administers FEMA programs and coordinates federal disaster response in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.
The units will include about 570 personnel composed of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive response specialists, as well as command and control and security forces.
According to a news release from Rep Ike Skelton’s (D-Mo.) office, the Missouri Homeland Response Force will be established in Fiscal Year 2012. The units will be ready to respond within six to 12 hours of an event, bringing medical, search and extraction, decontamination, security, and command and control capabilities to bear in a regional response.
“I am very pleased Missouri will host a National Guard Homeland Response Force. Keeping Americans safe is our number one priority, and this new Homeland Response Force is part of DoD’s efforts to improve emergency response,” Skelton said.According to the DoD announcement, the move came about following the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review — a congressionally mandated report put together every four years that highlights changes and challenges in national defense strategy. The 2010 report calls for improved coordination with civilian officials and providing resources for large-scale emergency response.
Gov. Jay Nixon applauded the move in a statement released on Monday afternoon.
Nixon said the move “will create as many as 90 new full-time National Guard positions under the leadership of Adjutant General Stephen L. Danner, and reaffirms our state’s commitment to supporting and encouraging the United States military here at home.”
Scott Holste, a Nixon spokesman, said officials were still reviewing the best community to base the new unit in. The new units should be established between September 2011 and October 2012.
Minority Report: NYPD Implements Iris Scan Technology
TruthSquad.tvDecember 17, 2010
The NYPD has begun to implement iris scanners to create a bio-metric database of criminal suspects as they are processed through central booking. NYPD says this new identification program is a fail-safe measure to prevent escapes as suspects move through the court system and that this technology is in response to two suspects escaping police custody by impersonating lesser offenders.
Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers Inc. a leader in the biometrics field says,
“In the future, whether it’s entering your home, opening your car, entering your workspace, getting a pharmacy prescription refilled, or having your medical records pulled up, everything will come off that unique key that is your iris. Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected [to the iris system] within the next 10 years.”
Global Rainmakers Inc. has partnered with the city of Leon, Mexico to build “the most secure city in the world” by installing iris scanners. The eye scanners will be implemented in law enforcement facilities, security check-points, police stations, detention areas, jails and prisons, and will eventually make their way into mass transit, medical centers, banks and other public and private locations will also join the program.
Fast Company reports that the city is creating a database of irises. Criminals will automatically be enrolled, their irises scanned once convicted. Law-abiding citizens will have the option to opt-in. When these residents catch a train or bus, or take out money from an ATM, they will scan their irises, rather than swiping a metro or bank card. Police officers will monitor these scans and track the movements of watch-listed individuals.
Back in the U.S. at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas the Department of Homeland Security beta tested iris scanners and in one Missouri county, the sheriff’s office is using an Iris scanner purchased with U.S. Department of Justice funds. Unknown by most, the technology is reportedly already being used by law enforcement in 40 states throughout the country.
There is even an app for that. B12 Technologies has equipped police with iPhones armed with facial recognition software linked to fusion center databases.
Amusement parks like Disney World and Sesame place have implemented biometric ticketing as well. How long before under the auspice of anti-terror legislation the federal government requires these corporations to turn over their customers biometric data? Even the controversial “naked body scanners” store biometric data as has been revealed by Freedom of Information (FOIA) Act Requests, contrary to what the TSA has been telling the main stream media.
The iris scanners have also been used in airports. The TSA will allow you to skip to the head of the line if you submit to being included in a biometric database. It all comes in the name of convenience. Trade your privacy to save a few minutes on line at the airport amusement park.
The NYPD program is being paid for by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. The NYPD already shares its database information with DHS through its NYPD Intelligence Division, which is actually a known “fusion center.” These fusion centers act as hubs of information, merging databases from the NYPD, DHS, Motor Vehicle and many other sources to create a searchable catalog of the entire population.
There are over 70 fusion centers in the United States according to Catherine Bleish founder of Operation Defuse whose goal is to create a rapport between civil liberty groups and the fusion centers that will “defuse” the conflict of security and rights violations.
“That’s not our intention here, but it has potential,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in reference to using the iris scanners for counter terrorism purposes.
“The NYPD can now photograph the irises of suspects arrested for any reason and they implemented this without any legislative oversight or public discourse. There are also no reports on how authorities plan to protect this collected biometric data from misuse.” said David Perecman a civil liberties attorney in New York.
That is probably because the NYPD Intelligence division has no plans to protect this information from being disseminated through the NY fusion centers allowing access to any law enforcement agency in the network.
“This type of data collecting is not authorized by any New York statute. Collecting fingerprints is specifically allowed. DNA evidence has had more legislative debate and its usage is only limited to certain types of cases.” said Perecman.
This information dovetails with another recent controversy over “stop and frisk” databases. Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg pushed to keep the recently banned NYPD policy to keep a database of New Yorkers who were stopped and frisked but not found guilty of any violation. You read that correctly. Mayor Bloomberg wanted to keep a list of innocent people who the NYPD stopped and frisked with no probable cause in a direct violation of their Constitutional rights. Incidentally only 6 percent of those random stop and frisks lead to an arrest, the conviction rates were not readily available. That means that more than 94% of people in that database are innocent.
The “250” List as it is referred to because of the UF-250 form that officers use to file stop-and-frisk reports has over 3 million names on it. Eighty seven percent of those stopped were black or Latino.
Governor Paterson signed into law a ban on this policy, although that only stops the NYPD from keeping their names in an electronic database. The NYPD is still keeping a paper record of these stops even if no evidence of a crime has been found and no arrest made. The NYPD continues to violate the constitutional rights of New Yorkers randomly stopping people for reasons as innocuous as spitting on the ground or dropping a cigarette butt. It should also be noted that the Mayor Bloomberg has been lobbying for British style video surveillance in NYC. Britain has one CCTV camera for every 14 citizens.
So where do we see all of this going? If Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelley get there way Police officers will be stopping, frisking and taking retinal scans of millions of innocent New Yorkers then data sharing with the Federal government, Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies in violation of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Mission Creep: TSA to Implement “Secure Flight” on November 1
Infowars.comSeptember 29, 2010
On November 1, boarding an aircraft in the United States will become more intrusive. That’s when the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration will begin enforcing something called “Secure Flight.”
In June, DHS boss Janet Napolitano announced that:
“100 percent of passengers traveling within the United States and its territories are now being checked against terrorist watchlists through the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Secure Flight program,” as recommended by the 9/11 white wash commission.
Under the program, destined to be a bureaucratic nightmare, TSA goons wearing blue latex gloves will prescreen a passenger’s name, date of birth, and gender against government watchlists for domestic and international flights, according to a TSA press release.
“Individuals found to match watchlist parameters will be subjected to secondary screening, a law enforcement interview or prohibition from boarding an aircraft, depending on the specific case.”
If you think only Muslims and shady characters from Yemen or Pakistan will be double checked, think again. Recall the nightmare experienced by Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordon, two peace activists who were detained in San Francisco in September, 2002, a couple weeks after the first anniversary of the day we were told cave-dwelling Muslims made NORAD stand down. The pair were searched and interrogated after the TSA claimed their names resembled “those of suspected criminals or terrorists,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported son September 27, 2010.
“One detainment forced a group of 20 Wisconsin anti-war activists to miss their flight, delaying their trip to meet with congressional representatives by a day. That case and others are raising questions about the criteria federal authorities use to place people on the list — and whether people who exercise their constitutional right to dissent are being lumped together with terrorists,” the newspaper also reported.
Meanwhile, supposed terrorists are allowed to board planes, for instance Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the fizzle pants non-bomber. It was no secret Abdulmutallab had “multiple communications” with Islamic extremists in Londonistan, the home base of MI6 groomed patsies, dupes, and mental deficeints.
Abdulmutallab was also allowed to get a visa, just like Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric who was on a terrorist watch list at the time and would later as a star patsy be convicted in the first WTC bombing case. In 2006, investigative reporters discovered that the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency specialized in deliberately keeping some suspected terrorists off the US international no-fly list. In order to make sure its dupes and patsies are allowed to travel unrestricted, the CIA has operatives inside the Federal Air Marshal Service.
It is not a coincidence the absurdly over-hyped fizzle pants non-bombing was staged on Christmas day over Detroit as Congress was talking about reforming the Constitution nullifying Patriot Act. Moreover, in the months following the orchestrated event, the government’s no-fly list doubled, from about 3,400 people to about 6,000 people, a senior intelligence official told USA Today in March.
The TSA also used the Times Square non-bombing to tweak its no-fly list procedures.
“The Transportation Security Administration has implemented a new rule requiring airlines to check the no-fly list within two hours after being notified of a special update,” Fox News reported after Faisal Shahzad’s cobbled together barbeque canister bomb failed to explode.
The Secure Flight program was not designed to prevent terrorists from boarding planes. It will be implemented next month as part of an effort to expand the government control grid and get commuters acclimated to submitting to absurd mandates that are obviously unconstitutional.
As Paul Joseph Watson noted earlier today, the government is moving forward in its efforts to impose its police state control and submission grid on the American people. It has now moved its naked body scanner technology from airports to the streets and highways of America.
“Body and vehicle scanners are just one tool authorities plan to implement on a widespread basis as part of our deepening decline into a hi-tech militarized police state,” writes Watson. “The implementation of ‘Checkpoint USA’, where citizens are routinely stopped, searched and radiated by federal VIPER teams is further evidence of how America is crumbling into a Soviet-style police state where the presumption of innocent until proven guilty is abolished and the 4th amendment eviscerated.”
Secure Flight is yet another step in that direction. It may appear innocuous, but is in fact designed to get citizens accustomed to government officials micromanaging every aspect of their daily lives, be it at the airport or at the local mall.
