But it turns out that homegrown terrorism pales in frequency and fatalities compared with typical street crime, so many of the centers have begun collecting and distributing criminal intelligence, even of the most mundane kind.

In the process, Homeland Security Department officials say, the centers are developing a system to receive, sort and share crucial information. And they say it’s too soon to judge the program, which is likely to grow in importance as a tool in detecting terrorism before it erupts.

And former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge has weighed in on the situation, voice criticism at a recent event.

“We thought if we just threw the name out there, built a bunch of them, we’d feel a lot better,” former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said this month at George Washington University. “And I frankly think there’s too many of them. We still don’t have quite the protocol we need to make sure that they’re effective.”

Those concerns were raised in Michigan Messenger reporting in 2008 when Michigan Messenger’s sibling site the Colorado Independent looked into fusion centers and found mission creep and a lack of firm authority.

Fusion centers remain mysterious as they monitor Michigan citizens

[Ed. note: Michigan Messenger looked at fusion centers earlier this year; sister site Colorado Independent looks at a self-issued DHS report reviewing the work these centers perform.]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cares about your privacy. Really. And to prove it, the secretive agency established for “preserving our freedoms” recently released a report assessing the job of fusion centers — the intelligence-sharing operation that mashes national security data with suspicious-activity law enforcement reports for state, local and federal authorities.

In an interesting moment of synchronicity with civil liberties advocates, DHS admits, yeah, there may be a few problems.

The assessment — which borrows heavily from earlier reports by internal watchdogs, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and General Accountability Office (GAO) — lists a cavalcade of privacy, transparency and oversight concerns about the fusion centers:

• Privacy: The report concludes that “…frequent and serious privacy violations will erode public confidence in the important purposes of the Initiative.” DHS adopts CRS and GAO recommendations that fusion centers step up their privacy training, establish privacy committees to work with local advocates, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and make their policies available to the public.

• Oversight: Concerns are raised about who’s in charge and who’s watch-dogging the intelligence-gathering mentioned in the assessment, which echo one of many problems outlined in The Colorado Independent’s own reporting on the fusion center that is based in a nondescript office park in Centennial.

• Military-private sector collaboration: One area that is sure to get civil libertarians up in arms is the conflation of businesses and intelligence-gathering, as evidenced by the firestorm set off by the Bush administration’s secret wiretapping program involving communications giant AT&T and other firms. The DHS report claims that the perceptions that fusion centers have access to vast amounts of private-sector data is “largely unfounded.”

• Data Mining: The report states that the term “data mining” isn’t well understood by the public, which raises concerns about protecting the privacy of personal information collected by the fusion centers and distributed throughout the intelligence food chain. Yet, without a hint of irony, DHS acknowledges that it doesn’t have any 2008 data from the centers to analyze for compliance with federal privacy rules.

• Excessive secrecy: The department recognizes that its veiled activities are “responsible for the mis-characterization of fusion centers as mini-spy agencies or akin to the FBI’s discredited — and long abandoned — COINTELPRO program.” To counter that perception, it encourages the local fusion centers to make public its privacy policies and legal authority to collect and compile clandestine data — an admirable goal that, by DHS’ own admission, still hasn’t been implemented a decade after the first fusion center was established.

• Inaccurate or incomplete information: In probably the most Orwellian notation in the report, concerns about erroneous data creeping into the information bank are blithely dismissed because “… fusion centers are already practiced in regularly reviewing and purging incorrect or stale information.” The recommendation continues that individuals should be able to seek redress to correct mistaken information contained in a secret, terrorism-busting database, although the subject likely has no knowledge of being monitored or having personal information collected and mined by law enforcement.

• Mission Creep: Lastly, the assessment agrees with a CRS conclusion that the fusion centers have gravitated far beyond their initial counterterrorism missions and now include a broader spectrum of crimes as well as a seemingly limitless “all-hazards” scope. The CRS report continues that there is no one model for how state-based fusion centers should be structured and that they must rely on their own patchwork of state privacy and transparency laws since DHS has no jurisdiction in the new missions.

Precious little has been reported on the Dec. 11 fusion center assessment, but as Ars Technica sarcastically notes:

Readers looking for real meat, alas, will have to wait for one of the promised updates: the current report has the distinct feel of a product hurried to press in order to meet a statutory deadline, and reads, for the most part, like a high school book report cobbled together from newspaper reviews. Though it stresses transparency as a key to bolstering public trust in fusion centers, it contains no real information about how (or whether) the formal principles developed by DHS are being implemented. If fusion centers were a theoretical entity slated to begin operating in a year or two, this might be adequate. As it happens, however, they’re active right now, and with over a year to gather data, the Privacy Office doesn’t seem to have gleaned much information about what they’re actually doing. Perhaps they should consider starting a fusion center.

(Wendy Norris is managing editor of Michigan Messenger’s sister site, The Colorado Independent.)

Imagine your mortgage company passing along your personal information to the state police, who in turn share it first with the FBI and then the National Guard, all as part of building a profile on you in order to predict and prevent crime in your community.

Welcome to the brave new world of fusion centers. And Michigan has two.

In the aftermath of 9/11, state and federal agencies and governments recognized the role that the breakdown in communication between agencies had played in the failure to prevent the terror attacks. They decided to remedy that by forming fusion centers — new offices where teams of federal, state and sometimes local law enforcement officials could “fuse” some of their staff with those from intelligence agencies and even the military under one roof.

Such centers — like the Michigan Intelligence Operations Center located in East Lansing — it was argued, would combat terrorism more effectively, thereby making Americans safer. Since 2001, at least 58 fusion centers have come into operation around the country, with dozens more in development. They “may be the most significant change in the structural landscape of criminal intelligence in at least the past twenty-five years,” Russell Porter, director of the Iowa fusion center, told Congress in April.
Continued -MIOC began forming in 2006, with Gov. Jennifer Granholm issuing an executive order in December that laid out its structure and oversight.

“The State of Michigan’s Intelligence Operations Center shall collect, evaluate, collate, and analyze information and intelligence and then, as appropriate, disseminate this information and intelligence to the proper public safety agencies so that any threat of terrorism or criminal activity will be successfully identified and addressed,” reads MIOC’s mission statement.

But almost since their creation, the fusion centers have been dogged by concerns about the scope of their mission, their lack of transparency and strict oversight, their potential for civil liberties violations, and their lack of benchmarks for success.

In Michigan, Shelli Weisberg, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union, whom Granholm appointed to the MIOC advisory board, said, “Our biggest concern is the lack of transparency. They’re putting together something that sounds great. I think it’s perfectly reasonable that law enforcement, the courts and anyone that has to do with these crimes should be communicating with one another. But this goes much further.”

Mission creep

Fusion centers originally were designed to combat terrorism, but since their founding they’ve broadened the scope of their focus. MIOC has “an all-crimes, all-threats scope of operations with a focus on the prevention of terrorism,” according to the U.S. General Accounting Office.

Yet, in practice, counterterrorism now seems almost like an afterthought in Michigan. The federal government has identified Islamic fundamentalism as the greatest terrorist threat facing the United States. Yet MIOC has no Arabic speakers on staff, according to spokesperson Melody Kindraka. In fact, she seemed taken aback when asked how MIOC approached intelligence-gathering among Michigan’s large Arab-American community. Later in an email she responded that “gender, race, ethnic background and religious affiliation have no barring [sic] on criminal investigations conducted by the [Michigan State Police].”

When asked for examples of MIOC’s effectiveness, Kindraka pointed to the apprehension of a suspect in an identity-theft case and a reduction in methamphetamine production in the state.

“My assessment of MIOC is that it is has nothing to do with gathering information on terrorism,” Weisberg said. “It has to do with gathering all police information in one place.”

MIOC’s privacy policy states that information will be retained “where there is reasonable suspicion that a specific individual or organization has committed a criminal offense or is involved in or is planning criminal…conduct or activity that presents a threat to any individual, the community, or the nation and the information is relevant to the criminal…conduct or activity.”

But “reasonable suspicion” is defined broadly, making it challenging to gauge the scope of MIOC’s reach.

“You’re putting all this data in there and we presume they’re looking for a way to cull the data and look for potential criminals or terrorists,” Weisberg said. “Police for a long time have wanted to get all this information in one place and this seems a way to do it. We worry, are they using this data to predict criminal activity? Which is fraught with all kinds of problems.”

Shrouded in secrecy, guarded by roadblocks

Perhaps the most noticeable feature of Michigan’s fusion centers is how well they’ve escaped notice: There have been virtually no media reports on them. The spokeswoman for MIOC wasn’t familiar with the other center in Detroit. Nor, initially, was the spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Two state legislators who chair committees on homeland security didn’t return calls seeking comment for this story.

MIOC operates under the auspices of the Michigan State Police and is located in MSP’s headquarters. Under Granholm’s executive order, the center is supposed to report to a 15-member advisory board. However, its Web site gives no mention of its location at 714 S. Harrison Road in East Lansing; of its director, Lt. Mary Pekrul; or of the members of its board, who currently number only four: MSP Director and Advisory Board Chair Col. Peter Munoz, Monroe County Sheriff Tilman Crutchfield, Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings and the ACLU’s Weisberg.

Those who want to learn more about MIOC will face roadblocks to doing so. MIOC’s public affairs office would not allow the director, Pekrul, to be interviewed for this story. MIOC spokesperson Kindraka would not say how many staff people work at MIOC or how much its taxpayer-funded budget amounted to, even though she said most of the center’s funding comes from the state.

One glimpse into MIOC’s future can be found in a request for proposals issued in April in which the center solicited bids for software that will “leverage Web crawling technologies, database search technologies and decision algorithms to identify and push data relevant to investigative activities to intelligence personnel.” The system, budgeted at $500,000 to $1 million, is expected to be completed by January 2009.

For the determined, squeezing information out of MIOC can be costly: A Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the center four weeks ago by the ACLU came back with a price tag of $800 to obtain the documents, Weisberg said.

MIOC has been operational for months, yet its governing board has never met: The board’s current four members fall well short of the quorum of a majority needed in order to function.

“The thing I’ve been concerned about most personally is they had an obligation to have an advisory board,” said Virginia Rezmierski, an expert in technology and privacy who teaches at the University of Michigan’s School of Information and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. “It didn’t have enough teeth in the first place. But they haven’t even filled it.”

The Detroit fusion center is even more of a mystery than MIOC: It was formed in February under the city’s Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and housed with the High Intensity and Drug Trafficking Area program. The Detroit center is still considered a “small cell” because it’s waiting for funding, said James Canning, spokesman for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

The Detroit center brings together Detroit police with officials from the FBI, the Coast Guard, Military Affairs and the Transportation Security Administration, Canning said. Its director is Daryl Lundy, also director of the DHSEM. But the center’s existence goes unmentioned on the department’s Web site, and no one interviewed for this story knew anything about its operations.

Broad information-gathering power

“We don’t know a lot about MIOC,” UM’s Rezmierski said. “That’s one of the first reasons I’m concerned. If you don’t expose these kinds of databases and data procedures to the light of people who know technology and can reflect back upon them…

“It raises a mass of questions,” she continued. “What kind of data are they going to retain and how is it going to be used? If you’re going to retain personal information on individuals, you have a responsibility to ensure no one is altering that data from the point of collection to transport and purpose.”

In response to the frequently asked question “Who has access to fusion center information?” the MIOC Web site offers the following vague answer: “Individuals have rights to privacy. Our Constitution reflects values that are deeply rooted and cherished by American culture. The real or perceived violation of privacy or constitutional rights will not be tolerated. Fusion centers operate in accordance with laws governing intelligence investigations, records retention and release of information.”

But those laws are unclear. One federal law, known as 28 CFR 23, requires that law enforcement officials have “reasonable suspicion” of illegal activity before collecting information. But some fusion centers have already adopted “suspicious activity reports,” which define non-illegal activities like taking pictures of buildings and taking notes in public as possible precursors to terrorism.

Also troubling to groups concerned with protecting privacy and civil liberties is the role played by the private sector in fusion centers. According to Kindraka, private companies and individuals will not be permitted to access MIOC’s databases.

However, according to the MIOC Web site, the private sector will contribute to the center’s databases. “The private sector has an important role to play in the protection of our nation’s critical infrastructure, as they desire to protect their assets, employees, and customers,” the site says. “Additionally, they provide important sources of information as private sector security often has better observation capabilities and knowledge of the activities occurring around their local facilities and around the world. This data will be useful to a fusion center analyst in identifying emerging trends or threats.”

The state Legislature has oversight of MIOC. However, neither Sen. Cameron Brown, R-Fawn River Township, chair of the Homeland Security and Emerging Technologies Committee, nor Rep. Gino Polidori, D-Dearborn, chair of the Military and Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Committee, returned calls for comment.

Staffers of state Rep. Richard LeBlanc, chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State Police and Military and Veterans Affairs, attempted to locate a line item for MIOC’s funding in the state budget but were unable to do so. Weisberg also has been unable to find dedicated MIOC center funding in the state’s budget.

Are Americans safer?

At its root, MIOC’s mission is to keep the people of Michigan safe.

“The purpose of the MIOC is to deter and prevent crime through the facilitation of information sharing,” Kindraka wrote in an email.

Measuring its success at upholding that mission, however, is not easy. Kindraka said that crime-prevention activities are difficult to quantify, because they are often long-term and have a gradual impact.

As an example of a successful endeavor, she pointed to MIOC’s distribution of information from the Farmington Police Department about a suspect wanted in connection with an identity theft investigation. A member of the Sterling Heights Police Department reviewed the MIOC information and recognized the suspect as someone recently lodged in the Macomb County Jail. Farmington PD is now working with the U.S. Secret Service to pursue federal charges, Kindraka said.

The problem with assessing MIOC’s effectiveness, Weisberg said, is rooted in its lack of concrete, measurable goals: “You have to be able to say that you’re spending your money wisely. If there’s no baseline for what they’re looking for, and no clear mission statement, what are they trying to accomplish? Without that we can’t measure whether they’ve accomplished anything.”

Finally, the real obstacle in assessing MIOC — its effectiveness, its adherence to privacy laws and its observance of civil liberties — lies in the center’s unwillingness to open itself to public scrutiny.

“We’re talking about basic information privacy and data-protection standards,” Rezmierski said. “I have no evidence that these are being observed at all because they give us no evidence of how they’re operating. That can do nothing but cause people to suspect that they’re not operating with sound data practices, or don’t care to.”

For more reporting on fusion centers, see our sister sites:
Minnesota Independent: “You don’t know MN-JAC: Anti-terror fusion center grapples with security flaw, new privacy policy”
Iowa Independent: “Iowa intelligence fusion center ‘connects the dots’”
Colorado Independent: “Colorado fusion center to step up intelligence gathering during DNC”