Fusion Center Meltdown!Virginia fights Fed Spy Centers! (MIAC)
Submitted by Liberty_Belle on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 10:33Fusion Center meltdown: Feds stifling open government in VA?
The VA legislature is one local battleground where open government and civil liberties/privacy advocates are facing off against federal efforts to expand the reach of domestic intelligence gathering at the expense of democratic oversight.
This past Friday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act suit against the Virginia Department of State Police in an effort to uncover whether the federal government has been interfering in the state's open government legislation. EPIC suspects that the feds are trying to use the state police to pressure the Virginia legislature into passing a bill that will put limits on the state's open government laws and will encourage citizens to inform on one another by protecting anonymous tipsters from defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuits.
Why do the feds care about HB1007, the Virginia bill that open government advocates have decried as a major affront to privacy, civil liberties, and government accountability? In a word, it comes down to "fusion."
The ultimate expression of this new federal/state integration was a nationwide network of "fusion centers"—low-profile, highly secure sites where federal and state officials with top secret clearance meet in order to collect, analyze, and redistribute information on "all hazards, all threats."
As opponents of domestic surveillance often point out, all domestic spying operations eventually turn their sights on political dissidents, if only to justify their funding in the absence of other threats.)
full story..
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2008/03/fusion-center-m...
SEE MAP OF FUSION CENTERS and more reports here:
DON'T SPY ON ME!
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/87058
Bump
So my hubby can read.
They want to stop any congressional oversight on spying !
The HB 1007 would make these centers EXEMPT from any FOIA ` Freedom of Information Act'
On February 12, EPIC filed a FOIA request for any records of meetings and communications between the Virginia State Police and various federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, concerning the Virginia Fusion Center. EPIC intended to use the results of this FOIA both to determine if the federal government were essentially lobbying for the passage HB1007 and to lobby against the bill.
The state police failed to produce any of the requested documentation, so EPIC filed suit on March 21.
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THESE FUSION CENTERS ARE IN EVERY STATE BUT IDAHO!!
'MIAC' is the one in Missouri
SEE MAP and more info on reports and suits on this link
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/87058
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"I truly wish that real life would no longer surpass the worst excesses of my nightmarish imaginings... Arthur Silber **
"I think we are living in a world of lies: lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and grandchildren of lies." ~ Chris Floyd
Great :/
We just got through the major fight against real ID and I still am not sure I am compltely happy with the final outcome of that. Now this?
Virginia! Heads Up! Fusion Center Fight!!
Heres another article on the Virginia Fusion Center fight!! This is a fusion center like the one in Missouri (MIAC) Every state has one except Idaho!
Secrecy bill for state anti-terror agency has some crying foul!
"Most people know little about the Virginia Fusion Center. And if a bill quietly wending through the General Assembly becomes law, they’ll know even less.
The bill, coincidentally named HB1007, would exempt the center’s investigative and intelligence documentation from the state Freedom of Information Act and would shield its employees from subpoenas in civil lawsuits concerning criminal intelligence information or terrorism investigations."The bill passed the House 98-1, and a Senate panel could hear it this week. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine supports the measure, according to a spokesman.
The Virginia Press Association and the Virginia Coalition for Open Government have lobbied against the bill. The Virginian-Pilot is a member of the press association and is a founding partner of the Coalition for Open Government.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research group in Washington, D.C., also weighed in, sending a records request to the center last week to test what information will be released.
“By creating this immunity … you’re shutting off one more avenue of oversight,” said Michael German, co-author of a recent American Civil Liberties Union report titled “What’s Wrong with Fusion Centers?”
“That’s problematic. Our history has shown over and over again when the government is given secret powers, it abuses them.”
full article
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/secrecy-bill-state-antiterro...
*****
"I truly wish that real life would no longer surpass the worst excesses of my nightmarish imaginings... Arthur Silber **
"I think we are living in a world of lies: lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and grandchildren of lies." ~ Chris Floyd