States setting up own antiterror centers

WASHINGTON -- Frustrated by poor federal cooperation, states and cities are building their own network of intelligence centers led by police to help detect and disrupt terrorist plots.

The new "fusion centers" are now operating in 37 states and another covers the Washington area, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The centers, which have received $380 million in federal support since the 2001 terrorist attacks, pool and analyze information from local, state, and federal law enforcement officials.

The emerging "network of networks" marks a new era of opportunity for law enforcement, according to US officials and homeland security specialists.

Police are hungry for federal intelligence in an age of homegrown terrorism and more sophisticated crime. And federal law enforcement officials could benefit from a potential army of tipsters -- the 700,000 local and state police officers across the country, as well as private security guards and others being courted by the centers.

But the emerging model of "intelligence-led policing" faces risks on all sides. The centers are popping up with little federal leadership and training, raising fears of overzealousness associated with police "red squads" that spied on civil rights and peace activists decades ago.

The centers also face practical obstacles that could limit their effectiveness, including a shortage of money, skilled analysts, and proven relationships with the FBI and Homeland Security.

Still, the centers are emerging as a key element in a sometimes - chaotic new domestic intelligence infrastructure, which also includes homeland security units in local police forces and 103 FBI-led terrorism task forces, triple the number that existed before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Fusion centers are becoming part of the landscape for local government, said the incoming Washington , D.C., police chief, Cathy Lanier. But she warned that police are navigating a new patchwork of state and federal privacy laws that govern the sharing, collection, and storage of information. "We're in a very precarious position right now," she said. "If we lose community support, that is going to be a big deal for local law enforcement."

Traditionally, police had little to do with counterterrorism. But after the 2001 attacks, it became obvious that Al Qaeda members had been preparing not only in Afghan training camps but also in places such as a Gold's Gym in Greenbelt, Md., and flight schools in Florida. A Maryland state trooper unwittingly stopped one of the future hijackers for speeding on Interstate 95.

"Police officers, deputies , and troopers . . . they're going to be the ones that encounter a lot of these [suspicious] things on the road," said Virginia State Police Sergeant Lee Miller, who oversees the state's year-old fusion center in Richmond. "What we're trying to do is provide them the information they need to identify these different things."

The fusion centers range from small conference facilities to high-tech nerve centers with expensive communications networks. Some do investigations, while others focus on information sharing -- passing tips to the FBI and scanning federal intelligence for developments of interest to local departments. Some have explored the use of controversial data-mining software in keeping with their respective state laws.

Maryland's three-year-old fusion center outside Baltimore offers a glimpse of the new intelligence world. Hidden behind a bolted door with no nameplate in a quiet office park, the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center houses members of 23 local, state, and federal agencies.

Officials say an incident on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 2004 shows the center's effectiveness. State transportation police stopped an SUV after a veiled passenger was seen videorecording the bridge in a suspicious manner. The officers called the fusion center, which discovered that the driver was an unindicted co-conspirator in a Chicago case involving Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group.

Harvey Eisenberg, an assistant US attorney who helps oversee the center, contacted a prosecutor in Chicago, who quickly obtained an arrest warrant for the driver as a material witness in the Hamas case.

But the driver, Ismail Elbarasse, a US citizen of Palestinian origin living in Annandale, Va., was quickly released on bond, and the material-witness warrant eventually expired. He was not charged with a crime. His family said the veiled woman, Elbarasse's wife, was simply videorecording the bay while returning from the beach.

Civil liberties advocates worry that the fledgling fusion centers could stray into monitoring people engaged in lawful activities, as some members of new police homeland security units have done.

A Georgia homeland security officer, for example, was discovered photographing a protest by vegans at a HoneyBaked Ham store in 2003. Privacy advocates are also concerned about the vast amount of information some fusion centers collect -- and the sometimes vague limits on its use and storage.

"In Phoenix, we're talking about something like 250,000 police reports a year: names, addresses, contact information, business cards, tickets, all the kinds of information that is gathered and that can be of tremendous value at a national analytical level," said John Buchanan, Phoenix assistant police chief. He added, however, that "we've really got to be cognizant of the risk" of abuse.