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Thursday, April 03, 2008

i guess fusion isn't just a type of music

it's a type of stomping on our rights (what's left of them, i cannot tell you. precious little i must say)
Centers Tap Into Personal DatabasesState Groups Were Formed After 9/11
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.Washington Post Staff Writer
Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.
One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the
CIA, the document shows, though it's not clear what information those systems contain.
Dozens of the organizations known as fusion centers were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to identify potential threats and improve the way information is shared. The centers use law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies. They are expected to play important roles in national information-sharing networks that link local, state and federal authorities and enable them to automatically sift their storehouses of records for patterns and clues.
Though officials have publicly discussed the fusion centers' importance to national security, they have generally declined to elaborate on the centers' activities. But a document that lists resources used by the fusion centers shows how a dozen of the organizations in the northeastern United States rely far more on access to commercial and government databases than had previously been disclosed.
Those details have come to light at a time of debate about domestic intelligence efforts, including eavesdropping and data-aggregation programs at the
National Security Agency, and whether the government has enough protections in place to prevent abuses.
The list of information resources was part of a survey conducted last year, officials familiar with the effort said. It shows that, like most police agencies, the fusion centers have subscriptions to private information-broker services that keep records about Americans' locations, financial holdings, associates, relatives, firearms licenses and the like........

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here is a link to a related article online:

http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/showlink.aspx?bookmarkid=Q6KIBTI91L11&preview=article&linkid=5d3a2bf1-67c0-4f52-9e73-b9fef238ae5e&pdaffid=ZVFwBG5jk4Kvl9OaBJc5%2bg%3d%3d

Sincerely,
MediaMentions