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Texans for Accountable Government Reportand Recommendations Concerning theAustin Regional Intelligence Center

January 2010

REASONS TO IMPLEMENT FUSION CENTER SAFEGUARDS

The first fusion center was created in 2003 as part of the US Department of HomelandSecurity and Department of Justice response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.The fusion centers were intended to help address the problem of inadequate informationsharing between governmental agencies. While this is an admirable goal, the nature of thefusion center concept raises serious concerns. Texans for Accountable Government hascompiled several reasons that proper safeguards must be put in place.

Anti-Terror or Anti- Dissent?

Since the inception of the War on Terror, America has witnessed a continual inversion of the resources that were once used as a means of protecting America and her people fromforeign invasions and attacks. The use of the security state as a means to track, coerce, or deter peaceful and constitutionally protected action has a long history in the United Statesof America. The FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was conceived in1956 to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside theCommunist Party U.S.A.; however, it’s operations soon included non-violent women’srights and civil rights groups and protesters of the Vietnam War. The final report of theChurch Committee’s hearings on the FBI’s COINTELPRO noted:Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO wentfar beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimedsquarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech andassociation, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.Take note of the wide variety of non-violent groups that were targeted.The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from thePanthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, andincluded most black student groups. New Left targets ranged from the SDS to theInteruniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy, from all of AntiochCollege ("vanguard of the New Left") to the New Mexico Free University andother "alternate" schools, and from underground newspapers to students protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs withfour-letter words on them.http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIa.htm

2Key to the ability of COINTELPRO to carry out its abuses was unrestrained access to personal information. Safeguards, such as the Privacy Act of 1974 and the ForeignIntelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), that were instituted after the Church Committee’shearings have been weakened or dismantled in the current War on Terror. As with casesduring the 1960s and 1970s, the anti-terror intelligence apparatus has been used to spy oncitizens who are expressing a political viewpoint.a)

FBI Intelligence Bulletin no. 89 - TACTICS USED DURING PROTESTS ANDDEMONSTRATIONShttp://www.aclu-co.org/spyfiles/Documents/ACLUwebsite.fbi%20memo.101503.pdf b)

Washington Post – Md. Police Put Activists’ Names on Terror Listswww.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100703245.html