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Fusion Centers
If you go to the Department of Homeland Security’s web
site at http://www.dhs.gov and click
“Counterterrorism” at the top of the page and then click “Protecting, Analyzing
& Sharing Information,” you will come to a category that says “State and
Local Fusion Centers.” There you
will find information that represents the official version of state and local
fusion centers.
You will learn that our national fusion center network
is part of our national security effort.
You will learn that the primary mission of fusion centers is for
information and intelligence sharing, that every state and major city has at
least one fusion center. You’ll
learn that while the goal of the federal government focuses on terrorism, state
and local governments “want the centers to support their efforts to anticipate,
identify, prevent, and/or monitor criminal conduct.”
But if you go to the Electronic Privacy Information
Center’s web site, an organization that has called for “accountability,
oversight, and greater transparency of fusion centers” at http://epic.org/privacy/fusion, you get an even more detailed picture
of fusion centers, one that makes you ask
- could they have a relationship to complaints of organized gang
stalking? When you read at the
Electronic Privacy Information Center web site that “The four major desired
outcomes for fusion centers are: the reduction of the incident of crime;
suppression of criminal activity; the regulation of noncriminal conduct; the
provision of services,” you do a double take – “the regulation of noncriminal
conduct” – what’s that all about?
If you go to the web site of ACLU of Massachusetts at
http://www.aclum.org, and click on the upper left hand side of the page that
asks – “Are we all suspects? Sunlight on Surveillance” and then on “fusion
centers”, you will come to the link of a “Domestic Surveillance Fact Sheet”
that might begin to explain what that is about. And you might wonder, as I did, is that what “the regulation
of noncriminal conduct” means?
Because the fact sheet on fusion centers at the ACLU
of Massachusetts web site tells you “peaceful, protected First Amendment
activity has frequently been labeled as ‘terrorism-related.’” It cites what has happened in different
states. In Maryland there was
“systematic spying on and infiltration of peace and anti-capital punishment
groups by the Maryland State Police.”
They tell how in 2005-2006 the Maryland State Police who were part of
the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center, a fusion center, and worked with
the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force “kept groups and individuals under
surveillance even though there was no evidence that they were involved in
violent or criminal activity.”
Tracked as suspected terrorists - their surveillance reports “shared
with at least seven federal, state and local law enforcement agencies” - were the Chesapeake Climate Action
Network, the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, the Coalition to End the Death
Penalty and Amnesty International.
The Surveillance Fact Sheet describes how Max Obuszewski, a peace and
anti-death penalty activist, “was entered in federal drug trafficking databases
as ‘ Primary Crime…Terrorism-Anti-Govern[ment]’ and ‘Secondary
Crime…Terrorism-Anti-War Protestors,’” – labels the Fact Sheet calls
“outlandish.”
It goes
on to tell about Bette Quaker who had a fusion center file listing her as “a
member of organizations she never belonged to (PETA, Ruckus) and placed her at
demonstrations she never attended.”
The questions are – who is checking on the accuracy of information filed
at fusion centers? Once inaccurate
information becomes part of your fusion center file – how do you get that
information out of your file – especially when you are never informed of what
has been said against you? And the
biggest question of all - if you
are an organized gang stalking target such as myself – are people being
harassed and put under conspicuous surveillance as a result of files that exist
somewhere in fusion centers?
In Virginia a
document from that state’s fusion center, the Surveillance Fact Sheet said,
labeled “various Black colleges and universities” – “potential ‘radicalization
nodes’ for terrorists.” Earth
First!, the Nation of Islam along with 33 groups were labeled as “potential terrorist
threats.” In Texas the Council on
American Islamic Relations, ANSWER, the International Action Center, former
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Muslim
groups were named as “fostering an ‘environment for terrorist groups to
flourish’” although no allegations could be made against them.
In
Missouri, at the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a fusion center, it said
militia members were “usually supporters” of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr
in a leaked report. It warned
Missouri police “to be on the lookout for people displaying bumper stickers and
paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and
Libertarian parties.” In Colorado
documents revealed the Joint Terrorism Task Force targeted “anti-war
protestors,” “environmental activists” and “Black Extremists” in domestic
terrorism investigations.
In Minnesota in 2008 “local police spied on groups
organizing protests and raided their homes.” They took “political literature, cell phones, computers,
cameras and personal diaries,” from them.
In Pennsylvania there was monitoring by the FBI of anti-war activity,
investigation “of meetings of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and
Justice.” In New York there was surveillance by the
Department of Defense of the War Resisters League by recruiting stations in New
York City.
In a Department of Defense database they were said to
advocate “Gandhian nonviolence.”
Even though protestors agreed to use nonviolence it was “concluded” they
could “favor ‘civil disobedience and vandalism.’” In Georgia there
was surveillance of “peaceful anti-war and other protests.” In California
databases contain information about “animal rights rallies, environmental
demonstrations, anti-war protests, student protests against military recruiting
on campus, labor union organizing, and demonstrations against police
brutality.”
In
Massachusetts former Governor Mitt Romney recommended monitoring mosques. Anti-war events, protests,
demonstrations, marches are listed in a “Preventive Intelligence Bulletin.”
The American Civil Liberties Union Web Site explains,
“mass surveillance has become one of the U.S. government’s principal strategies
for protecting national security.”
All this raises questions about fusion centers. Anti-COINTELPRO regulations have been
suspended. How can we be sure
fusion centers will not engage in the kind of COINTELPRO activities documented
by the Senate Committee know as the Church Committee?
How can we be sure there will be no surveillance of
citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs pose
no threat of violence or other illegal acts? How can we be sure fusion centers will not collect
information about the intimate details of citizens’ lives, about their participation
in legal and peaceful political activities?
How can we be sure the FBI will not engage in
activities as it did in previous COINTELPRO programs to disrupt and discredit
domestic political groups or individuals engaged in constitutionally protected
activities? Will citizens be given
due process rights when anonymous tipsters make accusations against them to
fusion centers or will that information be databased? Might they be put under
surveillance as a result of what tipsters or neighbors or firemen or others say
against them – even when these tipsters are carrying out personal
vendettas? Who will determine the
accuracy of information kept in files at fusion center on American
citizens? How can citizens correct
errors in their files?
What do
citizens do when inaccurate information in their files in fusion centers are
shared between agencies? What
recourse will an American citizen have who feels he or she is the target of a
secret offensive action by a fusion center? What mechanism exists for people who believe their
activities are unlawfully being monitored to redress their grievances? Why isn’t there congressional oversight
over fusion centers?
Will
fusion centers engage in monitoring and conducting surveillance of individuals
or groups without credible evidence of wrongdoing or making preparations for
criminal acts? Is a mechanism in
place to periodically review and audit intelligence files by a neutral third
party? When the ability of police
to track the cars of American citizens without a warrant is abused what
recourse does the citizen have?
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