"Fusion Centers" Created After 9/11

Centers Tap Into Personal Databases
State Groups Were Formed After 9/11

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 2, 2008; A01

Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.

One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA, the document shows, though it's not clear what information those systems contain.

Dozens of the organizations known as fusion centers were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to identify potential threats and improve the way information is shared. The centers use law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies. They are expected to play important roles in national information-sharing networks that link local, state and federal authorities and enable them to automatically sift their storehouses of records for patterns and clues.

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040103049_pf.html

Fascism. Get use to it. :dem:

and massive computerized data storage.

Such as questioning the real motive behind "intelligence centers."