The Center for Investigative Reporting began examining U.S. Department of Homeland Security policy and spending in September 2008, hoping to better understand two things: How effectively is the government spending billions of dollars on new counterterrorism programs since 9/11? And how deeply will intelligence officials and law enforcement probe into the private lives of Americans? 

When former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary in early 2009, she made incorporating state and local police into the fight against terror a top priority. She did so in part by backing more than 70 intelligence “fusion centers” built nationwide after 9/11. Their purpose is to bring state and local agencies under one roof with federal officials to collect and share intelligence about possible criminal and terrorism threats.

Napolitano also launched a nationwide campaign encouraging citizens, local police and private security personnel to report suspicious activity believed to be linked to terrorism and crime. “If you see something, say something” became the initiative’s trademark phrase, and hardly a public speech passes by today without Napolitano mentioning it. 

In 2009, CIR began by submitting an open-government request to the Los Angeles Police Department, which had established an aggressive program that required patrol officers to report dozens of activities considered suspicious. After lengthy exchanges with the department, CIR’s records request was denied. The department cited legal provisions that shield certain types of law enforcement documents from public scrutiny.

CIR then sent public records requests to a fusion center in Minnesota and to the Bloomington Police Department, which has a substation inside the Mall of America. The mall’s security director, Douglas Reynolds, had testified to Congress in 2008 that his facility was the “No. 1 source of actionable intelligence” provided to the Minnesota Joint Analysis Center. The Department of Homeland Security also had created a special public service announcement on behalf of the mall, encouraging shoppers to report suspicious activity. 

A CD-ROM and a box of paper documents arrived from Minnesota in June 2010. The box contained more than 1,000 pages of documents describing people who had been stopped at the Mall of America for suspicious activity and showing how the reports were later shared with law enforcement agencies. Additional public records requests were sent to more than 20 fusion centers and police departments around the nation, seeking reports from popular landmarks, shopping malls, sports venues and other sites. So far, those requests have been denied or remain outstanding. 

CIR then approached NPR about working together. We teamed up to produce stories on the phenomenon of suspicious activity reporting using the documents from Minnesota to give readers and listeners a glimpse inside the nationwide initiative. A CIR video team, working with NPR, began producing a story for “PBS NewsHour.” 

Follow-up requests were sent this year to the Bloomington police and Minnesota’s fusion center seeking new reports that may have been generated. The city of Bloomington turned over 80 more pages of documents. The fusion center, however, refused, citing new security restrictions signed in March by the commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Public Safety.  

G.W. Schulz and Andrew Becker from CIR, along with Daniel Zwerdling and Margot Williams of NPR, made numerous trips to Minnesota, Connecticut, Southern California and elsewhere to conduct interviews with people who appeared in the reports, attend conferences where the subject of suspicious activity reporting was discussed, and consult with experts knowledgeable about counterterrorism intelligence and law enforcement. Reporters also extracted detailed data from the reports. The collaborative investigation produced the following elements:

• Radio, television and print stories about suspicious activity reporting at the Mall of America and around the country
• A database of incidents at the mall by date, place and more showing the types of behavior security personnel have been on the lookout for
• Video explainers that take viewers inside the nationwide explosion in local police intelligence gathering since 9/11
• Original documents posted online, with some personal information redacted, so Internet users can see what a suspicious activity report looks like
• Extended video interviews with people who have appeared in suspicious activity reports, as well as experts on the subject

The Center for Investigative Reporting is the nation’s oldest independent, nonprofit investigative news center. You can contact the reporter at gwschulz@cironline.org.