The attention of most in Congress, the media, and the privacy rights community has been focused this spring on the looming Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments (FAA) Act Section 702 reauthorization fight, generally for good reasons. However, other expansions of domestic surveillance powers and data sharing are getting far less attention—and one such measure before the House today may dramatically expand the kind of information state and local law enforcement agencies can get from the federal government.
Introduced on April 26 by Rep. John Katko (R‑NY), the “Improving Fusion Centers’ Access to Information Act” (HR 2169) is designed to plug any “information gaps” in state “fusion centers” by modifying the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require DHS to
identify Federal databases and datasets, including databases and datasets used, operated, or managed by Department components, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of the Treasury, that are appropriate, in accordance with Federal laws and policies, to address any gaps identified pursuant to paragraph (2), for inclusion in the information sharing environment and coordinate with the appropriate Federal agency to deploy or access such databases and datasets;
If the sound of this makes you feel uncomfortable, it should for several reasons—not the least of which is the last-minute decision by the Obama administration to make more raw (and thus potentially unverified or inaccurate) intelligence from the National Security Agency available to the FBI, and thus other law enforcement agencies the FBI decides need the data.
What makes Katko’s bill—which is coming to the House floor under expedited consideration via a legislative procedure known as “suspension of the rules”—even worse is that it ignores the 2012 findings of a Senate Homeland Security Committee report that found that state fusion centers were at best worthless, and at worse Bill of Rights violation factories.
In the press release on the committee report, then chairman Senator Tom Coburn (R‑OK) stated, “It’s troubling that the very ‘fusion’ centers that were designed to share information in a post‑9/11 world have become part of the problem. Instead of strengthening our counterterrorism efforts, they have too often wasted money and stepped on Americans’ civil liberties.”