Fusion Centers Expand Criteria to Identify Militia Members – Updated

UPDATE: The head of the Missouri Highway Patrol has quashed a controversial report linking conservative groups with the modern militia movement.

Superintendent James Keathley said distribution of the report has been halted, and that a new system is being created to review future reports before they’re released.

Lt. Governor Peter Kinder said the report unfairly targets conservative Missourians.

“We had a focus on pro-lifers, folks who are concerned about enforcement of our borders and the immigration issue, and other people all on the conservative side of the spectrum, and I think the focus is wrong,” Kinder said.

Kinder is calling for an investigation into the report and wants Public Safety Director John Britt placed on administrative leave.

A spokesman for Governor Jay Nixon voiced support for Britt and for the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which produced the report.

Press Secretary Scott Holste said the report’s premature release is due to a flawed oversight system that existed long before Nixon took office.
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If you’re an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia supporting a third-party candidate or a certain Republican member of Congress, if you possess subversive literature, you very well might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group.

That’s according to “The Modern Militia Movement,” a report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a government collective that identifies the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists for law enforcement communities.

“Due to the current economical and political situation, a lush environment for militia activity has been created,” the Feb. 20 report reads. “Unemployment rates are high, as well as costs of living expenses. Additionally, President Elect Barrack [sic] Obama is seen as tight on gun control and many extremists fear that he will enact firearms confiscations.”

MIAC is one of 58 so-called “fusion centers” nationwide that were created by the Department of Homeland Security, in part, to collect local intelligence that authorities can use to combat terrorism and related criminal activities. More than $254 million from fiscal years 2004-2007 went to state and local governments to support the fusion centers, according to the DHS Web site.

During a press conference last week in Kansas City, Mo., DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano called fusion centers the “centerpiece of state, local, federal intelligence-sharing” in the future.

“Let us not forget the reason we are here, the reason we have the Department of Homeland Security and the reason we now have fusion centers, which is a relatively new concept, is because we did not have the capacity as a country to connect the dots on isolated bits of intelligence prior to 9/11,” Napolitano said, according to a DHS transcript.

“That’s why we started this…. Now we know that it’s not just the 9/11-type incidents but many, many other types of incidents that we can benefit from having fusion centers that share information and product and analysis upwards and horizontally.”

But some say the fusion centers are going too far in whom they identify as potential threats to American security.

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