ustxtxb_obs_2009_04_03_50_00017-00000_000.pdf

photo by Steve Satterwhite Fox News presides over Collin County’s anti-terror center. To . IV 5; BURNING. RUBBER g ea 4110/61 ICON= V#E. gOlusiM , r 4, 183.19 :,-1,4′ ..:.q5:, ,:>:kPs047.13,0AMPE.4. 5.4V0Pa01917,I ,W ,r1 4 ,`”if ‘Pfs’ 511 , orAfragrA, eu 2 ,4 PF,a ,z;g144111TT.Iigi 741.4,4,; er;gi; rfi re:e DR. BOB’S TERROR SHOP The strange and scary story of the North Central Texas Fusion System. by Forrest Wilder 0 ne morning in February, more than 2,000 cops, fire marshals, and public health officials in the Dallas-Fort Worth area received a memostamped “For Official Use Only” that contained shocking information: Middle Eastern terrorists and “their sup porting organizations” had gained a stronghold in America. The memo warned: A number of organizations in the U.S. have been lobbying Islamic-based issues for many years. These lobbying efforts have turned public and political support towards radical goals such as Shariah law and support of terrorist military action against Western nations. … [Me threats to Texas are significant. Who were these Osama bin Lobbyists who had convinced Americans to support terrorism? Citing a grab bag of right wing blogs and news sources, the memo lists the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the International Action Center, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism”ANSWER”and former Democratic U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It also suggests that a class on Islamic finance taught at the Treasury Department “indicates the possibility that the government hopes to secure recycled petrodollars in exchange for conforming to Shariah economic doctrine.” The memo ends by calling on law enforcement to “report” the activities of the organizations. The missive reads like a rant by a paranoid conspiracy nut. In fact, the so-called “Prevention Awareness Bulletin” is a weekly product of the North Central Texas Fusion System, a terrorism and crime-prevention intelligence center run by the Collin County Department of Homeland Security. The system gathers and shares information for a 16-county area that includes Dallas and Forth Worth. The bulletin is written by the architect and operator of the fusion system, Bob Johnson, a former chief scientist for defense contractor Raytheon Co. Johnson has a background in data mining, the controversial, computer-aided practice of trolling massive quantities of data in pursuit of patterns and links. At Raytheon, Johnson oversaw a short-lived project in Garland for the U.S. Special Forces Command that mined public information as well as classified files to sniff out AlQaida. The program, identified in congressional testimony as Able Danger, generated attention in 2005 and 2006 when former Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, claimed that Able Danger had identified Mohammed Atta, one of the APRIL 3, 2009 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17