HR 3503 Introduced – DHS Fusion Center Support

Two weeks ago Rep. McSally (R,AZ) introduced HR 3503, the Department of Homeland Security Support to Fusion Centers Act of 2015. It would require DHS to examine the level of support that it was providing to fusion centers around the country and address security clearance issues for fusion center analysts.

Support Requirements

Section 2 of the bill would require the DHS Secretary to “conduct a needs assessment of Department personnel assigned to fusion centers” {§2(a)} in accordance with the requirements of 6 USC 124h(c). The bill requires specific attention be given to the need for additional personnel from:

• US Customs and Border Protection, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Coast Guard for fusion centers located near border and coastal areas; and

• Transportation Security Administration for fusion centers located in jurisdictions with large and medium hub airports.

The Secretary is given 120 to complete the needs assessment and 60 days thereafter to provide a report to Congress on the plan for fulfilling the needs identified.

Section 3 of the bill would require the Under Secretary for Intelligence to “shall establish a program to provide eligibility for access to information classified as Top Secret” for State and local analysts located in fusion centers. A report to Congress on the progress of implementation of this would be required in two years.

Moving Forward

McSally is a junior (but very influential; she is Chair of the Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications Subcommittee) member of the House Homeland Security Committee so she does have political pull to move this bill along through Committee. Add to that the fact that Committee Chair and the Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee Chair are cosponsors and we can see why this bill was considered in a subcommittee markup last week; less than a week after it was introduced. The bill was recommended to the full Committee without amendments on a voice vote.

This bill will almost certainly come to the full Committee next month where it will pass with a substantial bipartisan vote. Whether and when it comes to the House floor will depend on how the bill is prioritized by Chairman McCaul (R,TX). Due to its non-controversial nature and bipartisan support it would be considered under suspension of the rules without further amendments. If considered by the House it would pass with substantial bipartisan support.

Commentary

While there is nothing in the bill that is the least bit controversial there are some things that are clearly missing. There is nothing in this bill (or the underlying statute) that would provide additional intelligence capabilities for other specialized potential threats.  For example there is no mention of major ground transportation hubs or areas with large chemical manufacturing concentrations. Both of these areas would be high-threat areas with specific intelligence analysis requirements.

I suspect that a large part of reason for the mention of these areas is that there are no large organizations that would have the people necessary to spare to man such posts. The TSA ground folks and the CFATS folks are woefully undermanned and underfunded and have not been provided with a real intelligence analysis component in any case.

It would be helpful if this bill were to include a needs analysis requirement to examine the potential need for specialized intelligence analysis capability in these two areas to support fusion centers as well as a requirement to identify other specialized intelligence categories that might be needed by fusion centers.

The need for access to Top Secret intelligence information at the fusion center level is probably justified. I don’t think that there would be a high volume of such information, but the TS clearance process is so involved that there is no quick way to approve such clearances if a real specific need does arrive.

The problem the Congress continues to ignore, however, when directing DHS and other agencies to share classified intelligence with non-Federal agencies and organizations is that there is a steep cost associated with the communications facilities and storage requirements for classified information.  I think that it would be appropriate in this legislation for DHS to report on the specific costs to fusion centers for adding the capability to transmit, receive and store Top Secret materials.

Chemical Security Intelligence

Last week the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment of the House Homeland Security Committee conducted a hearing on the “Defining a Homeland Security Intelligence Role”. Chairwoman Harmon invited Bart Johnson, Acting Under Secretary, Office of Intelligence and Analysis at DHS to explain what I&A is doing to improve the development and sharing of domestic intelligence information to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States. Unfortunately, little was said about sharing information with private sector players like high-risk chemical facilities. Secretary Johnson did make a number of generic comments about sharing information with the private sector. For example, in discussing the I&A Strategic Vision he noted that: “I&A’s primary customers are clear: the Secretary; state and local fusion centers and state, local, territorial, and tribal authorities; Department components; the private sector; the Intelligence Community (IC); and other federal departments and agencies”. Later in discussing State and Local Fusion Centers he stated that “the key for protecting the Homeland from attack is disseminating useable [sic] intelligence and information to our state, local, tribal and private sector partners, getting similar intelligence and information back from those partners for analytic work by I&A and the IC, and ensuring this two-way exchange happens on a real-time basis”. Fusion Centers Do Not Serve Chemical Facilities From the perspective of the security manager at a high-risk chemical facility there has been little done to provide for that two-way exchange of intelligence information. Information sharing procedures have focused on fusion centers established by State or major urban areas governmental organizations. While security officers may work through these fusion centers that does not assure that that is being done on an individual basis with not inter-facility exchange of information. The problem with the ‘local’ fusion center is that it is not focused on chemical facilities. This means that there is likely no one at the center that is specifically trained to identify threats that are directed against chemical facilities. For example the theft of an IED or chemical weapon precursor chemical may not trigger a warning for facilities that possesses/produce the other precursors needed to make that particular weapon. In fact, a conventional fusion center might not recognize that the report of the theft of thiodiglycol, for instance, was a potential predictor of a terrorist attack. Establish a Chemical Fusion Center What is needed is a chemical specific fusion center; an intelligence collection/analysis/dissemination organization that is targeted on chemical security issues. Actually, DHS already has an organization that is at least half-way there, the team that is administering the CFATS program in the Infrastructure Security and Compliance Division (ISCD). Think about it. They already have an extensive data base of chemical facilities that have significant amounts of one or more potential chemical weapons or precursors for chemical weapons on site; the information came from Top Screen Submissions from over 30,000 chemical facilities. They have point of contact information for responsible personnel at each of those sites. They have a secure web site that they could use to disseminate chemical security intelligence information to high-risk facilities. And those high-risk facilities are already trained and certified in procedures for protecting sensitive information. All that is needed is the addition of a chemical intelligence section to ICSD that would collect and process intelligence of about potential threats to chemical facilities. They would need to be tied into the Fusion Center network to collect and share intelligence information from/with that network. ICSD would have to establish a reporting network for collecting intelligence information directly from high-risk chemical facilities. That network could be based on the CSAT reporting system. That CSAT network could also be used to share information with the high-risk facilities. This is the next logical step in the process of developing a security process for high-risk chemical facilities. Unfortunately, the current CFATS regulations do not address this issue. A significant part of the reason for that is the fact that Congress never made any provisions for an intelligence operation to support chemical facility security. This is another over sight that Congress can correct as it moves forward with the approval process for HR 2868, the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009.