Homeland Security Intelligence FUSION Centers.....

[Joanne98]

These bastards aren't even looking for terrorists. They're watching AMERICANS!
And what the Hell is a FUSION CENTER anyway?

Mark James, director of the Department of Public Safety and chairman of the council, said he couldn’t get into any specifics about security threats. However, he said the briefing included information on a number of known organizations, including militia-type groups, Christian-identity organizations, militant environmentalists and international terrorists.

James said Missourians should just be “generally aware” of security rather than concerned about a specific, imminent attack.

Although Missouri has a control center at its State Emergency Management Agency offices, it does not operate around the clock and only responds to crises after they occur, James said, explaining the need for the “information and intelligence fusion center.”

“This would be a center that would operate 24/7,” James said, with staff analyzing intelligence and threats and having the ability to instantly contact first-response agencies.

Many other states, including Kansas, have similar centers to analyze threats.

He likened such a center to a situation room with television screens to monitor news outlets and various communications and computer equipment.

https://registration.kansascity.com/reg/login.do?url=http://www.kansascity.com%2Fmld%2Fkansascity%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F12352882.htm

This stuff makes me want to SCREAM.....

[electropop]

1. A Fusion Center fuses together information from multiple agencies.

The states are beginning to build them based on Federal models such as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC or "Tea Tick"). States would presumably focus on what's happening within their own borders, by the nature of their jobs. And yes, I'm hoping they will keep an eye on right-wing militias and other home-grown bad guys. Before 9/11, our biggest-ever terror attack was by militia pricks. I don't mind them stopping environmental saboteurs, who give our real progressives a bad name.

[wli]

2. They're looking for anyone leaning left.

They'll just randomly pick people out of the dragnet, maybe instead of just giving them speeding tickets they'll hold them without charges for a few days with Bubba and the big boys for a little plausibly deniable "rape room" action a la Abu Ghraib (which we pioneered stateside anyway; those were former US prison corrections officers running that show).

Hey, they did it to Vietnam-era protesters (Stephen Donaldson); how do you think spr.org got founded? What's stopping them from doing it again?

[electropop]

3. As they do with everything, the right will misuse Fusion Centers.

In competent, moral hands, Fusion Centers are a necessary tool to protect us from actual bad guys. In Repig hands, we're all fair game.

[wli]

4. the govt. shouldn't persecute its own citizens

And the Fusion Centers are only part of that.