One of the few things you are allowed to know about DIAC is that it has this cool Eagle logo Unfortunately, we haven't found our own Edward Snowden yet. (So I guess you'll just have to make due with me.) What if I told you that Delaware has its own little baby NSA, with an unknown budget, unknown capabilities, and no civilian oversight? And that this entity already has a history of using false pretenses to collect data from and about Delaware citizens? Specifically, I'm talking about Delaware's "fusion" center, the Delaware Intelligence and Analysis Center in Dover? This is a very long post below the break, but it contains virtually all the publicly known information about one of the most shadowy government organizations in Delaware, the one that nobody wants to talk about...

Sometimes we all laugh (a bit nervously perhaps) at the idea that Google eventually wants to have access to every piece of information on Earth. We should not be laughing, however, at the intention of the Delaware Information Analysis Center (1575 McKee Road, Dover) to eventually have access to every piece of information about Delaware. It is a lot closer to happening than you think. For example, as I have covered here before, the DIAC offered a mobile app available for you to download that would allow you to report the "suspicious" behavior of your friends and neighbors in realtime, but which also did oh so much more : After installation of the app, the fusion center can manipulate the camera application on a phone whenever it is running, allowing it "at any time to collect images the camera is seeing." The app can also tell the fusion center exactly where you are at all times, because by downloading it you've given it permission to monitor your GPS l...

Unlike the Missouri Information Anaylysis Center, the Delaware fusion center (Delaware Information Analysis Center) flies mostly below the public radar. Since opening in late 2005, news stories about DIAC have been sparse, partly because investigative reporting in the First State is a non sequiteur, and partly because Captain William Harris (who oversees the center) is a bright guy who understands that it is in his best interest to operate quietly. Harris did make one interesting comment in the only News Journal story to appear on DIAC, back in May 2007: The facility, known as the DIAC, opened in December 2005 with help from a $925,000 grant from the federal Department of Homeland Security to buy high-powered computers, software and other equipment. It is overseen by Delaware State Police Capt. Bill Harris, who asked that its exact location, somewhere between Dover and Smyrna, not be disclosed.... "The fusion process is to take law enforcement information and other information -...

The Automated License Plate Reader (vehicle mounted) The ACLU recently published You are being tracked:  How license plate readers are being used to record Americans' movements , in which the proliferation of ALPRs [Automated License Plate Readers] among law enforcement agencies nationwide is discussed: The implementation of automatic license plate readers poses serious privacy and other civil liberties threats.  More and more cameras, longer retention periods, and widespread sharing allow law enforcement agents to assemble the individual pieces of where we have been over time into a single, high-resolution image of our lives.  The knowledge that one is subject to constant monitoring can chill the exercise of our cherished rights to free speech and association. Databases of license plate reader information create opportunities for institutional abuse, such as using them to identify protest attendees merely because these ind...

This would be funny if it wasn't actually happening. Here's the paragraph from the WNJ wrap-up of big stories of 2013 : Throughout the year, the city’s residents heard shots fired over drugs or casual slights that community leaders knew never should have led to violence. There were 154 shootings leading to injury or death in Wilmington during the year, a dramatic increase from the prior year’s 96 . Overall, the statistics show Wilmington to be, on a per-capita basis, a much more dangerous place than Philadelphia, Baltimore, or nearly every other large American city. Make no mistake about it, this is a terrorist attack in slow motion, and many of the victims were children. And while people of good intentions can argue over the proper policing strategies to reduce violence in Wilmington and what they will cost, one thing is clear: The Delaware Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security is an abject failure. I've documented here , here , and here that Delaw...

10.  "Universal" background checks for person-to-person firearms exchanges are constituted so that current and retired police officers are exempted from this scrutiny , even though there is ample reason to believe that law enforcement officers (including the retired) commit suicide more often, are prone to domestic violence, suffer high rates of alcoholism/depression, and are resistant to seeking help for mental illness. 9.  Those semi-universal background checks can be examined by law enforcement agents any time, without probable cause, without a warrant . 8.   Red-light traffic cameras turn out (as Libertarians predicted) to be all about raising revenue, and not so much about traffic safety ( which seems to be exactly what Secretary of Safety and Homeland Security Louis Schiliro ordered ). 7.   The Wilmington Police Department has an incredibly high usage of tazers to subdue suspects ( a fact that is only reported about when somebody dies after being taze...

You gotta think this one through. Here's the appropriately bland intro from USA Today: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The final stages are near completion for the launch of a law enforcement social media network designed exclusively for the men and women in blue.   Created by former high-profile New York City police commissioner and Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton, BlueLine is being touted as a site where officers can share their expertise, insight and information securely through video, instant messaging, videoconferencing and screen share capabilities.   The network is scheduled to go live at the International Association of Police Chiefs' annual conference in Philadelphia in late October, Bratton said. So what could be wrong with promoting a safe atmosphere for police officers to network? How about everything?  Let me count the ways: 1.  The BlueLine network will be hosted on servers that appear to be accessible by the Department of Defense and the FBI. ...

... and you usually don't hear ME saying that. Delaware is one of the states in which, if you are arrested, the Delaware Code is currently silent on whether or not law enforcement may seize and examine everything on your cell phone without a warrant. The Florida Supreme Court recently ruled that such searches are not appropriate with a warrant: “We refuse to authorize government intrusion into the most private and personal details of an arrestee’s life without a search warrant simply because the cellular phone device which stores that information is small enough to be carried on one’s person.”  Given that, in Delaware, we already know that law enforcement is prone to invading your cell phone without your foreknowledge or permission [the DIAC "See something, say something" APP that converts your phone into a device to spy on you], it is not unreasonable to believe that our police are routinely examining the cell phones of people they have stopped or arrested. [Iro...

Louis J. Schiliro, our Homeland Security czar The whole interview actually took place about a year ago in Security Management, the PR blog for ASIS International, which does puff pieces on "security professionals."  But you would never have read it--because you weren't supposed to. But since this is hardly investigative journalism, I thought it would be instructive to provide a little context on the things that Mr. Schiliro, Delaware's Secretary of Safety and Homeland Security DOES and DOES not say. For example, when asked the question, "What assets and threats make the state unique?" Mr. Schiliro [who has presided over a gigantic mushrooming of the state Homeland Security budget since 2009], admitted that the chief terrorist threat to Delaware is ... snow and rain: We have a small state, but many of the same issues that the larger states do, just in terms of the things that we need to plan and prepare for. As it stands right now the issues that we...