Department of Homeland Security: Fusion Centers of Controversy

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has been investigating the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) fusion centers.  And, according to a October 2, 2012 press release from Sen. Coburn’s office  “The investigation found that DHS intelligence officers assigned to state and local fusion centers produced intelligence of ‘uneven quality – oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.’”  The 141-page bipartisan report used to describe DHS’s fusion centers should send a chill down taxpayers’ spines.

Fusion centers were created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 when federal and state governments decided that a need existed to improve and enhance communications sharing ability among local, state and national law enforcement.  The way to address this need was supposed to be found in implementing a nationwide network of “fusion centers.”  There are currently 77 fusion centers scattered across the country today.  According to the Washington Post, fusion centers have had bi-partisan support considering that both President George W. Bush and Obama have promoted fusion centers as “essential weapons in the fight to build a nationwide network that would keep the country safe from terrorism.”

Despite the lofty goals of fusion centers to facilitate, “increased collaboration and cooperation among all levels of law enforcement,” these DHS centers have become known as “pools of ineptitude, waste, and civil liberty intrusions. . .”  Additionally, Sen. Coburn (the ranking member for the subcommittee investigation and the member who initiated the investigation) explained that his investigation, “has found that  Department of Homeland Security efforts to engage state and local intelligence ‘fusion centers’ has not yielded significant useful information to support federal counterterrorism intelligence efforts.”  Worse still, the report found that “oversight has been so lax that department officials do not know exactly how much has been spent on the centers.  The official estimates varied between $289 million and $1.4 billion,” a staggeringly broad range of spending.

After examining closely what fusion centers failed to do or did abysmally, they did do something: succeeded in wasting a lot of taxpayer money.  The DHS’s inability to account for the exact dollar amount that was spent – more appropriately wasted – demonstrates that whatever the fusion centers were doing clearly didn’t involve adequate financial record keeping.  And just think this inability to account for information and money they used, comes from centers that were supposed to facilitate communication between state and federal authorities.  How can they do that if they can’t even communicate the amount of money spent? According to news sources, even an internal audit by DHS showed that the program didn’t work.

When the centers were able to account for how they wasted your tax dollars, here’s what the report found.  The groups excelled at purchasing things that “… did little to help share intelligence, including gadgets such as ‘shirt button’ cameras, $6,000 laptops and big-screen televisions.  One fusion center spent $45,000 on a decked-out SUV that a city official used for commuting.” Given this complete disregard for taxpayer dollars and for the DHS’s task at hand to protect and defend our nation from another terrorist attack- it’s no wonder that the investigation was “ unable to find any instance of reporting from fusion centers uncovering terror threats, or identify, ‘a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot.’”

Sen. Coburn’s report outlines the following nine recommendations:

• Congress should clarify the purpose of providing federal monetary and other support for DHS’ fusion center efforts.
• DHS should reform its intelligence reporting efforts at state and local fusion centers to eliminate duplication.
• DHS should improve its training of intelligence reporters.
• DHS should strictly align fusion center grant funding to meet federal needs.
• DHS should track how much money it gives to each fusion center.
• PM-ISE should evaluate fusion center capabilities and performance.
• DHS should link funding of each fusion center to its value and performance.
• DHS should timely disclose to Congress significant problems within its operations
• DHS should align its practices and guidelines to protect civil liberties, so they adhere to the Constitution, federal law, and its statutory mission.

While taxpayers should be encouraged that this two-year report and investigation brought light to such egregious abuses of taxpayer dollars, they should be equally discouraged that these fusion centers went unchecked for more than nine years.  This case of mismanagement is particularly outrageous because this also puts people’s lives at stake.  Congress should use this report as only the beginning and ensure that the findings are taken seriously and the recommendations are implemented.