Best news of 2013 - Texas fusion (spy) center could be closed due to budget cuts
(UPDATE 5/20/13) - A Republican-controlled House panel moved Thursday to protect the Department of Homeland Security from the big cuts facing other domestic agencies under the party's budget slashing plan.
The move came as the Appropriations Committee leadership privately circulated plans to drastically reduce spending for labor, education and health programs, foreign and housing aid, the Environmental Protection Agency and transportation.
The Pentagon would be spared and a program that provides food aid to poor pregnant women and their babies is likely to escape cuts, but the effects on most agencies would be severe — in the unlikely event the recommendations were to make their way into law over the protests of President Barack Obama and Democrats.
Democrats warned earlier Thursday that generously funding the homeland security and veterans' budgets will mean even sharper cuts to programs like education, medical research, transportation and clean energy. http://news.yahoo.com/house-bill-protects-homeland-security-budget-172020509.html
In a surprising (welcome) move, Texas House and Senate budget negotiators have agreed to wipe out funding for the Department of Public Safety’s fusion center, part of a nationwide intelligence gathering initiative that has generated controversy in Washington.
If the House and Senate affirm the change, it could make Texas the first state to pull the rug from under one of the statewide fusion operations that began under a Department of Homeland Security offensive that has been criticized for wasting taxpayers’ money.
“It’s shocking to me,” said Ron Brooks, a former director of the San Francisco fusion center who is now with a Washington D.C., consulting and lobbying group specializing in criminal intelligence issues. Despite their terrorism-focused origins, Brooks said the more than 70 fusion centers across the country have evolved into “all-crime centers” to coordinate information sharing among local, state and federal agencies. Such information sharing provides “smart policing” of everything from street gangs to homicide investigations, Brooks said. (Brooks, a B/S artist works for a consulting & lobbying group that profits from fusion centers) For more info see: http://www.iir.com/Home
He said he knows of no other state that has eliminated funds for a statewide center. (now for a reality check, there's no way this will be allowed to happen there's too much money & power behind fusion centers) For more info see: http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&article_id=2310&issue_id=22011
DPS requested close to $16 million over the next biennium to continue operating the Texas Fusion Center, where about 100 employees now work in offices located at the DPS headquarters. The House had eliminated money for the center in its version of the appropriations bill, and the conference committee that is hashing out the 2014-15 state budget concurred in that decision Monday.
A factor in that decision, according to budget documents crafted by the House, was an October 2012 report by a U.S. Senate investigative subcommittee that lambasted the fusion centers for “irrelevant, useless or inappropriate” intelligence gathering and wasteful spending on private contractors, while doing little to keep the country safer. Both the statewide fusion center and the one operated by the Austin Police Department opened toward the end of 2010, too late to be included in the Senate report.
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/budget-conferees-vote-not-to-fund-dps-fusion-cente/nXrPx/?icmp=statesman_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013_statesmanstubtomystatesman_launch
The United States has 185 agencies and at least 53 companies involved in surveillance-To find out more check out this link: http://bigbrotherinc.org/v1/United%20States/