Intelligence Centers in US Amalgamate Government, Corporate and Spy Agency Data

Posted by Hal
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Interesting piece in the Washington Post about the way intelligence centers set up after 9/11 - termed fusion centers - are accessing not only CIA and FBI and various covert databases but also things like insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports.

Here's a quote from the piece: "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. Centers serving New York and other states also tap into a Federal Trade Commission database with information about hundreds of thousands of identity-theft reports, the document and police interviews show. Pennsylvania buys credit reports and uses face-recognition software to examine driver's license photos, while analysts in Rhode Island have access to car-rental databases. In Maryland, authorities rely on a little-known data broker called Entersect, which claims it maintains 12 billion records about 98 percent of Americans...Police officials said fusion center analysts are trained to use the information responsibly, legally and only on authorized criminal and counter terrorism cases. They stressed the importance of secret and public data in rooting out obscure threats."

Toward the end of the article there's a telling sound bite from Maj. Steven G. O'Donnell, deputy superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police. "There is never ever enough information when it comes to terrorism," he says. "That's what post-9/11 is about."

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The Bloggist

Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...

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