Domestic terrorismFusion centers, created to fight domestic terrorism, suffering from mission creep: Critics
Years before the 9/11 attacks, law enforcement agencies throughout the country, alarmed by the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, began to monitor and investigate signs of domestic terrorism. That increased monitoring, and the need for coordination among various law enforcement agencies, gave rise to the fusion centers. A new report, which is supported by current and former law enforcement and government officials, concludes that post-9/11, fusion centers and the FBI teams which work with them shifted their focus from domestic terrorism to global terrorism and other crimes, including drug trafficking.Experts say that at a time when the number of domestic terrorism threats, many of which are linked to right-wing extremist groups, is surging, law enforcement must refocus their attention on the threats from within.
Years before the 9/11 attacks, law enforcement agencies throughout the country, alarmed by the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, began to monitor and investigate signs of domestic terrorism. The sovereign citizen movement gave birth to several groups which advocated independence from the U.S. government.
In 1997, two undercover officers with the Missouri Highway Patrol listened to militia leader Brad Glover speak to thirty people about setting up their own government and kidnapping a public official. The group’s ultimate plan was to attack Fort Hood at its annual Freedom Fest celebration on 4 July 1997. The plot was foiled when FBI agents arrested Glover and an accomplice at a campground forty miles southwest of Fort Hood before dawn, just hours before the planned attack. Officers at the scene found an automatic weapon, explosives, a silencer, 1,600 rounds of ammunition, and bullet proof vests. Glover and his associate were sentenced to five years in prison.
The case exemplified effective cooperation between various law enforcement agencies to conduct preemptive strikes against domestic terrorists. The concept was later introduced to law enforcement agencies across the country in the form of fusion centers. Today, there are seventy-eight fusion centers authorized by DHS and funded by the federal government via grants.
A report based on a one-year investigation by the Kansas City Star claims that fusion centers are not living up to their mission. The report, supported by current and former law enforcement and government officials, concludes that post-9/11, fusion centers and the FBI teams which work with them shifted their focus from domestic terrorism to global terrorism and other crimes, including drug trafficking.
“I think they’re an absolute waste,” said former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), who retired in January. “I don’t have any problem with the federal government working with local governments on organized crime and drugs and terrorism, too,” said Coburn, who had been a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which extensively studied fusion centers. “But I don’t think you need a fusion center.”
