By Mimi Hall
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON, D.C. — More than 40 state-run operations set up after 9/11 to help uncover terrorist plots are proving to be a costly but largely ineffective weapon against terrorism, according to congressional investigators.
Homeland Security has given states $380 million to set up the high-tech intelligence centers to help law enforcement officials do what they were not able to do before Sept. 11, 2001: recognize suspicious activity, patterns and people and use the information to prevent terrorist attacks.
However, the centers “have increasingly gravitated toward an all-crimes and even broader all-hazards approach,” focusing on traditional criminals and local emergencies, according to a report this month by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Built with state and federal money, the “fusion centers” are designed to encourage local, state and federal law enforcement and homeland security officers to share information.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said federal agents are reluctant to share information with local police. “This is the complaint I hear whether I’m in Maine or Los Angeles,” she said. Collins said federal agencies should be required to post analysts in the centers to improve trust.
Charlie Allen, Homeland Security’s chief intelligence officer, said he’ll have 35 analysts in the centers by the end of 2008.
The CRS report found “little true fusion, or analysis of disparate data sources, identification of intelligence gaps and pro-active collection of intelligence” at the 42 centers now set up in 37 states. In some cities, such as New York, the centers are working fairly well, with federal and local agents working side-by-side. But in many areas, investigators said, they are not.
New York State Police Col. Bart Johnson, chairman of a group that advises the Justice Department on local law enforcement needs, said the centers need more computer connections among states and better links to federal databases and watch lists.
“Fusion centers make connections that might otherwise not be made — potentially leading to an arrest and stopping an unfolding terrorist plot in its tracks,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. “That kind of situational awareness ... is exactly what we need if we’re ever going to secure the homeland.”
In Maryland, Assistant U.S. Attorney Harvey Eisenberg, who runs the Anti-terrorism Advisory Council, said operating the state’s fusion center, which costs close to $2 million a year, is a struggle and the center has too few analysts.
He said officers at the center do a lot of work on “general crime.” When it comes to “putting together those dots” that might lead to potential terrorists, “we need to do better at that.”
Former 9/11 commissioner Bob Kerrey said the government’s inability to share information effectively poses “a real risk as well as a missed opportunity.”
Allen said most centers have only been up and running for less than two years. “We have to do it better and faster,” he said, “but we’re very early into this.”
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