Critical Releases in Homeland Security: October 17, 2012

This Majority and Minority Staff Report was issued by Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. From the Executive Summary:"Sharing terrorism-related information between state, local and federal officials is crucial to protecting the United States from another terrorist attack. Achieving this objective was the motivation for Congress and the White House to invest hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars over the last nine years in support of dozens of state and local fusion centers across the United States. The Subcommittee investigation found that DHS-assigned detailees to the fusion centers forwarded 'intelligence' of uneven quality -- oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens' civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism. Congress directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to lead this initiative. A bipartisan investigation by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has found, however, that DHS' work with those state and local fusion centers has not produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts. The Subcommittee investigation also found that DHS officials' public claims about fusion centers were not always accurate. For instance, DHS officials asserted that some fusion centers existed when they did not. At times, DHS officials overstated fusion centers' 'success stories.' At other times, DHS officials failed to disclose or acknowledge non-public evaluations highlighting a host of problems at fusion centers and in DHS' own operations. Since 2003, over 70 state and local fusion centers, supported in part with federal funds, have been created or expanded in part to strengthen U.S. intelligence capabilities, particularly to detect, disrupt, and respond to domestic terrorist activities. DHS' support for and involvement with these state and local fusion centers has, from the beginning, centered on their professed ability to strengthen federal counterterrorism efforts."

"This guidance provides recommendations for protecting personnel responding to a wide-area anthrax attack from developing anthrax as a result of exposure to aerosolized 'Bacillus anthracis' ('B. anthracis') spores and for minimizing the amount of exposure in the first week of a response. This guidance has been requested by responders because the nature of their work may put them at higher risk of exposure when they are asked to enter contaminated areas and when their duties require them on an ongoing and repeated basis to interact with the environment in ways that may increase exposure. Protective measures include the same medical countermeasures (i.e., drugs, vaccine) that would be made available to the general population as well as personal protective equipment (PPE), and other possible work practices based on their job tasks. Guidance for a local population exposed to 'B. anthracis' would come from their state and local governments; CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has listed guidance for those governments at www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/anthrax/prep. A federal interagency working group that included subject matter experts in biodefense, infectious diseases, and occupational health and safety developed this guidance regarding appropriate protective measures for responders in the immediate post-attack environment of a wide-area aerosol anthrax attack."

This is the December 7, 2011 hearing on "Homegrown Terrorism: The Threat to Military Communities Inside the United States" held before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security. From the opening statement of Peter T. King: "This is the fourth hearing in a series the House committee has held this year on the serious threat of violent Islamist radicalization within the United States. Our committee has previously investigated radicalization within the Muslim-American community generally, radicalization in U.S. prisons, and probed the recruiting and radicalization carried out inside the United States by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab group in Somalia. This joint investigative hearing will seriously examine the emerging and growing danger to our men and women serving in uniform. I believe it is particularly appropriate that we do this on Pearl Harbor Day, when so many troops were killed in a surprise attack 70 years ago." Statements, letters, and materials submitted for the record include those of the following: Peter T. King, Joseph L. Lieberman, Bennie G. Thompson, Susan M. Collins, Paul N. Stockton, Reid L. Sawyer, Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad, Michael L. Weinstein, Laura W. Murphy, Islamic Society of North America, S. Floyd Mori, Shoulder-to-shoulder: Standing with American Muslims; Upholding American Values, and Daris Long.