Published: March 29, 2009 11:24 pm      

Fusion center helps fight war on crime

CHARLESTON — Waiting to board a plane for a West Coast destination, two men suddenly were removed from a passenger line by police at a Charleston airport.

One had information on the military. The other was carrying a book on explosives. A suitcase was crammed with batteries.

“We pulled them out of line because they were acting suspicious,” explained Tom Kirk, onetime superintendent of the West Virginia State Police.

“When we opened their luggage, they had all this stuff in their luggage.”

Kirk is handling a new mission in life, directing West Virginia’s fledgling fusion center, a new tack in the war on terrorism and crime in general.

Put simply, it acts as a clearinghouse so data can be analyzed and the proper law enforcement agency put on notice for immediate, or long-range, investigations.

“When we opened their luggage, they had all this stuff in there,” Kirk said, following up on his account of an incident that occurred about two weeks ago.

Kirk’s new agency swung into action, tipping the FBI.

“By the time they left their office here in Charleston and got to the airport, we actually had a packet ready for them on who these guys were.”

Using the resources of the State Police, the center found their IDs and learned why the two Raleigh County men were getting out of town.

“We were able to get hold of those different businesses and find out everything,” Kirk said.

“The bottom line was, everything they said was factual.”

As it turned out, the two men posed no threat to anyone.

“But the system worked,” Kirk said.

Yet, the fusion center can leave nothing to chance, which is why all such reports are given immediate and intense attention. One room with a James Bond aura features half a dozen plasma television sets running non-stop with major news networks and a weather channel. Computers are blinking constantly. Official-looking folks dart in and out.

Anything that comes its way is given the utmost attention, however harmless it can turn out to be. Even the disgruntled workers at the airport.

“There were all kinds of indicators showing these people might be a threat,” Kirk said.

“But in the matter of probably less than an hour, we were able to let these people go on their way and determined they were no threat.”

Oh, the batteries, you ask?

“They were construction workers and both had decided that it was time to leave the state and figure if they could start a life somewhere else,” Kirk said.

Once the FBI interviewed them and all checks were run, and advised they were free to fly, the men had a change of heart.

“They decided that they didn’t want to go anyway,” Kirk said, laughing.

“I think they went back to Raleigh County.”

Kirk can chuckle about the incident now. Yet it underscores the seriousness with which the fusion center attacks every piece of information that flows into its small complex. Nothing is regarded as insignificant.

Kirk was the lone staff when he arrived a year ago. Today, there are four full-time people, but as many as 15 actually come and go, some representing other agencies such as Division of Corrections, the FBI and the like.

“Fusion centers have kind of evolved from a terrorist-type situation in what’s called ‘all crimes and hazards,’” he explained.

“Anything that would threaten the health, safety or property of anyone in the state or nationally. We receive information on that, try to analyze it, try to vet it, try to make sure it’s realistic and send it back.”

In a recent tour, Sen. Clark Barnes, R-Randolph, a stickler for individual privacy rights, raised questions about the lengths the fusion center would go in trying to track down potential threats.

For instance, would it pry into personal telephone records? Snoop through a citizen’s e-mails? Does the center have that capability?

“No, we cannot,” Kirk said, emphatically. “We have no police powers.

“There are police agencies that have the power to do that, but they have rules and regulations that are governed by both state law and federal law to do. We don’t. We might have a police agency come to us that has looked at information they have received or got that information. They might give us specific points to ask us if we can place that on a map for them for something like that.”

In California, however, he acknowledged, the fusion center has access to wiretapping information.

“But we don’t,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of police agencies that do a fantastic job. We just bring them all together in one place.”

Afterward, Barnes said he felt better about the West Virginia center’s undertaking and its declared mission.

“I still have my concerns about the handling of classified information and the separation of individuals who have proper security clearance and those who may not,” the senator said.

“We need to discuss that a little further.”

But Seth DiStefano, a field organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union in West Virginia, remains skeptical, partly because Freedom of Information Act requests have gone largely unanswered.

“We filed two FOIA requests and have not received an official response,” DiStefano said.

One was filed in April 2008 and a second one last August.

“We haven’t received any substantive response,” he said. “They did get back with a letter in the allotted five days. But they haven’t really answered any of our questions substantively, and that concerns us.”

The ACLU wants to know if private interests are involved, the funding mechanism and what level of federal cooperation is occurring.

Kirk invites the ordinary citizen to supply information by contacting the center at 304-558-4831, or through a fax at 304-558-6592.

Fusion centers have grown out of the intelligence breakdown that preceded the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he pointed out.

“There were a number of different agencies that had information,” he said.

“Some were allowed to share with our agencies. Others didn’t know how to share it. And there were some local agencies, once they shared it, it disappeared and no one actually knows what happened to it.”

Kirk acknowledged some valid threats have been uncovered but declined to share them with a reporter, Barnes and Senate counsel Tom Smith during the tour.

Are there sleeper cells at work within the mountains of West Virginia?

“I wish I could tell you that,” Kirk said. And that was as far as he would go with an answer.

One tidbit he did share, since it has become unclassified, was the dispatch with which fusion centers leaped into action when a mysterious white substance began to leak from envelopes.

Fear mounted at mailing offices across the country as the arcane powder fell from bags that popped open as they were put into machines.

Taking no chances, the fusion centers, working in tandem with the Department of Agriculture, quickly determined it was nothing to worry about.

“What it turned out to be was Cream of Wheat,” Kirk said. “They had a free sample offer.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com