We’ve written before about fusion centers, Homeland Security’s post-9/11 information sharing outfits notorious for being bad their jobs, and a particularly damning 2012 congressional report that outlined in agonizing detail exactly how bad they were. However, in light of recent events, its worth revisiting the reports conclusion, which argues that fusion center’s worst sin was drawing a connection between right-wing militia movements and right-wing terrorist activity.

The report ends with three examples of when fusions centers arguably hurt, rather than helped, counterterrorism efforts.

The first, which we wrote about before, was “the Russian cyberattack that never happened”.

The second was a report issued immediately following the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords …

which similarly managed to get ever major detail wrong, in some truly spectacular ways.

The final example concerned a report issued by Missouri’s fusion center, entitled “The Modern Militia Movement.” Unlike the other examples, the report’s main issue wasn’t with inaccuracy, but that it was “poorly researched and written,” and drew connections between “Constitutionally-protected, non-violent activity and a tendency towards violent extremism.”

Since drawing connections between “Constitutionally-protected, non-violent activity and a tendency towards violent extremism” is pretty much all fusion centers do, it’s interesting that this is where Congress decided to draw the line, rather than, say, vegans.

And unlike other reports, which drew tenuous connections between Black Lives Matter and terrorism, the author of “The Modern Militia Movement” actually issued an apology.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? Read the full report embedded below.

Image via Wikimedia Commons and licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0.