Fusion Centers and the Maryland Spying Scandal

z magazine ^ | 10/1/13 | Anthony Newkirk

[Nachum]

In July, a series on the organization and financing of the federal government's post-9/11 secret programs ran in the Washington Post. Investigative journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin called attention to the fact that nearly 2,000 private corporations administer and provide essential services to this "alternative geography." Like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, homeland security is a byproduct of business-government collaboration.

While two years in the making and accompanied by an elaborate website, the series overlooks the threats posed to constitutional rights by the new wave of secrecy. The authors do not mention the Maryland spying scandal that was briefly in the news in 2008-09, thanks, in part, to stories in the Washington Post. Besides sharing close geographical proximity to the subject matter, the Maryland events involved some of the institutions examined in the "Top Secret America" series. This neglect is remarkable since the Maryland spying scandal has been a window on the sea change in surveillance methods since 9/11, revealing how a broad range of people can fall under official suspicion.

A Brief History of Homeland Security

In February 2009, the Los Angeles Times reported allegations made by American Muslims that the FBI spied on mosques in California. Muslim organizations also claim that an infiltrator advocated the use of violence in conversations with worshippers. The surveillance tactics allegedly used in Orange County are a disturbing reminder of the Bureau's COINTELPRO agents and provocateurs hounding of political dissidents in the 1960s.

[Little Pig]

The article reads like a rehash of McCarthyism. The Fusion Centers and the DHS are going after anything that even vaguely resembles a political organization, if the article is to be believed. They’re infiltrating the full spectrum from far-lefty groups like Code Pink and PETA all the way to the far-right militias, and the categorizations they’re putting these groups in often have absolutely no relation to the group’s actual field of interest i.e. environmental groups getting classified as racist/hate groups.

All in all, the very picture of a government agency gone completely out of control.

[marron]

allegations made by American Muslims that the FBI spied on mosques in California.

This at least does not disturb me.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

William Arkin is an old marxist radical from the Institute for Policy Studies. Exposed supposed US nuclear weapons depots around the world back in the 1980’s

Dana Priest is reportedly married to longtime Cambodian Genocide denier William Goodfellow. She writes for the Wash. Post, which also publishes Arkin’s “expose’s” on American intelligence and defense policies.

Check two sites www.keywiki.org and www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org.

You’ll find a lot about them there.

[Excellence]

Yet they don’t have a problem with the zero-care data hub.

[Nachum]

DHS = KGB