Getting their money's worth! (NOT!)
Ever hear of "fusion centers"? They're what the DHS came up with after 9/11 to "close the gap" between federal and local law enforcement, to make sure that tips about potential terror plots got passed up the food chain in a timely manner. Except, since I'm blogging about it here, you can probably guess that that's not happening, according to a new report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
First up, the cost. Well, nobody's too sure. It's either $249 million, or $1.4 billion. Or somewhere in there. Probably.
So, how many fusion centers are there? Well, around 70. Maybe. Turns out that at least one of them, in Philadelphia, doesn't exist yet, despite already receiving millions in grants and despite a DHS announcement that it was established.
But they're producing useful intelligence, right? Not so much, no. In total, during the review period, fusion centers in 31 states kicked out 610 reports (no reports were submitted by the other 19 states), more than half from Texas and California. Of the 574 reports that weren't classified, 188 were "cancelled" during a review process, because they basically didn't contain anything useful. Of the 386 that were accepted, only 94 pertained "in some way" to "potential" terror activity (versus fusion reports like this one, from Los Angeles, about the dangers of liquid CO2 leaks), and a quarter of *those* simply regurgitated previously-known information - in one case replicating a DoJ press release from months earlier.
More importantly, says the report, DHS has "struggled" to identify a clear example in which a fusion center provided intelligence that helped disrupt a terrorist plot. And, when investigators looked at the four "success stories" touted by DHS, they were "unable to confirm" that the fusion centers' contributions were "as significant as DHS portrayed them; were unique to the intelligence and analytical work expected of fusion centers; or would not have occurred absent a fusion center."
Okay, so what's the money being spent on? San Diego's fusion center spend $75,000 to buy 55 flat-screen televisions for "open-source monitoring". (That's a fancy way to say "watching the news".) And in Ohio, they bought special, ruggedized laptops for field use - which ended up in the medical examiner's office. Other jurisdictions bought SUV's, computers, and other equipment which mostly seemed to end up in general usage, suggesting the program is being used more as an augmentation to law enforcement budgets during a time of cutbacks than anything else.
So, a big, expensive program that doesn't do what it's supposed to. I feel safer already.
First up, the cost. Well, nobody's too sure. It's either $249 million, or $1.4 billion. Or somewhere in there. Probably.
So, how many fusion centers are there? Well, around 70. Maybe. Turns out that at least one of them, in Philadelphia, doesn't exist yet, despite already receiving millions in grants and despite a DHS announcement that it was established.
But they're producing useful intelligence, right? Not so much, no. In total, during the review period, fusion centers in 31 states kicked out 610 reports (no reports were submitted by the other 19 states), more than half from Texas and California. Of the 574 reports that weren't classified, 188 were "cancelled" during a review process, because they basically didn't contain anything useful. Of the 386 that were accepted, only 94 pertained "in some way" to "potential" terror activity (versus fusion reports like this one, from Los Angeles, about the dangers of liquid CO2 leaks), and a quarter of *those* simply regurgitated previously-known information - in one case replicating a DoJ press release from months earlier.
More importantly, says the report, DHS has "struggled" to identify a clear example in which a fusion center provided intelligence that helped disrupt a terrorist plot. And, when investigators looked at the four "success stories" touted by DHS, they were "unable to confirm" that the fusion centers' contributions were "as significant as DHS portrayed them; were unique to the intelligence and analytical work expected of fusion centers; or would not have occurred absent a fusion center."
Okay, so what's the money being spent on? San Diego's fusion center spend $75,000 to buy 55 flat-screen televisions for "open-source monitoring". (That's a fancy way to say "watching the news".) And in Ohio, they bought special, ruggedized laptops for field use - which ended up in the medical examiner's office. Other jurisdictions bought SUV's, computers, and other equipment which mostly seemed to end up in general usage, suggesting the program is being used more as an augmentation to law enforcement budgets during a time of cutbacks than anything else.
So, a big, expensive program that doesn't do what it's supposed to. I feel safer already.