politics

Minutes after the I-35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River, the Department of Homeland Security's National Operations Center called Mike Bosacker wanting to know what was going on, and whether terrorism might have been involved.

Bosacker got the call because he and nine analysts work at the Minnesota Joint Analysis Center (MNJAC) in Minneapolis.

Known generically as an information "fusion center," MNJAC is one of more than 40 such centers that grew out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to ensure that future threats wouldn't fall through the cracks that traditionally have separated law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Next year, MNJAC is expected to seek funding from state taxpayers for the first time.

But the idea of fusion centers worries some legislators and data privacy experts, who have raised concerns of privacy violations and unwarranted domestic spying. Bosacker said that soon after the 35W bridge collapsed this summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent MNJAC video that helped investigators quickly quell terrorism concerns, according to special agent Paul McCabe, spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Minneapolis office.

Coordinating that kind of rapid information-sharing is just how the fusion centers are supposed to work, Bosacker said.

"The criticism before 9/11 was that nobody was sharing information," McCabe said. "The feds weren't sharing with the locals. The CIA wasn't sharing with the FBI. The FBI wasn't sharing with anyone. And [fusion centers] is one way of getting the information out there, disseminating information."

But some fear that fusion centers such as MNJAC could end up sharing the wrong kind of information for the wrong reasons. According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, "The concern is to what extent, if at all, First Amendment protected activities may be jeopardized by fusion center activities."

With the Republican National Convention coming to Minnesota next year, some legislators say they don't know enough about MNJAC and want to ensure that it won't be used to spy on protest groups without just cause.

Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville, said she has concerns about the information MNJAC may be storing. In 2003, a computer hacker found a law enforcement file on her in a massive state database that MNJAC might be expected to tap into. Holberg warned state officials of the hacker's encroachment, prompting the state to temporarily shut it down.

"I need to make sure that there is an audit trail to find who has access to the database and what they do with it," Holberg said. "There's been abuses in the past and we don't need them again."

Bosacker said he understands such concerns but considers them overwrought.

"We're not trying to keep books on people who are not engaged in crime," he said. "But we also have an obligation to protect people from criminal behavior, and that's what this is about."

Police-state fears

The 9/11 Commission found that the hijacker terrorists might have been stopped if intelligence and law enforcement agencies hadn't hoarded information about them in separate silos.

In 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, requiring an information-sharing network among federal, state, local and tribal agencies and certain segments of the private sector.

Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, who was commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety and the state's homeland security director at the time, helped launch MNJAC in early 2005 with a federal grant and space at the FBI's headquarters building in Minneapolis.

MNJAC acts as an analytical center and a multidirectional relay for crime and homeland security information. An example of its work came after the 2005 London subway bombings, when MNJAC sent alerts to law enforcement, military and agencies that monitor critical infrastructure about what to watch for in similar attacks. MNJAC also sends data to federal authorities and fusion centers in other states to alert them to crime trends, such as the recent rash of Minnesota thieves targeting copper tubing.