Exclusive: Senators Accuse Homeland Security Spies of Cribbing From ‘Questionable’ Right-Wing Sources

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein and other prominent Senate Democrats have accused spies at the Homeland Security Department of basing official intelligence reports on dubious open-source material. Inquiries by Declassified indicate that at least some of the data that Feinstein and her colleagues deemed “questionable” came from a website set up by outspoken conservative activist David Horowitz to catalogue negative information about the political left.  

In an official report accompanying an intelligence authorization bill last year, Feinstein’s committee alleged that Homeland’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis had been issuing papers that “inappropriately analyze the legitimate activities of U.S. persons” – papers that “often used certain questionable open source information as a basis of their conclusions.” And n a little noticed floor speech in February, Feinstein spoke of “numerous problems” at the intelligence office, including poor planning and budgeting and excessive reliance on contractors. She went on to allege that on a number of occasions, Homeland’s spies had “produced and disseminated finished intelligence that has been based on non-credible, open source materials or focused intelligence resources on the first amendment-protected activities of American citizens.” She said the need for a new spy boss at Homeland was urgent, and successfully urged the Senate to confirm Caryn Wagner, a veteran intelligence executive, as Homeland Security’s new chief of intelligence and analysis

Congressional officials say the Homeland intelligence report that particularly angered Feinstein and other committee members is still classified. Nevertheless, three current and former intelligence officials, requesting anonymity when discussing sensitive information, say the report in question is a profile of an unnamed but prominent American Islamic leader and was produced by Homeland Security’s intelligence office during the latter years of the Bush administration. The report was requested by the Department’s civil rights office, whose officials were preparing to meet with the Islamic leader. But instead of sending the civil rights office a quick bio of the individual in question, Homeland’s intelligence office issued a “finished” intel report that was circulated to other intelligence agencies and, eventually, to Congressional oversight committees.

The report’s contents were sufficiently shocking to provoke a July 2008 letter of complaint to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Charles Allen, then Homeland’s intelligence chief, from Sen. Jay Rockefeller, then Senate Intelligence committee chair, and committee member Russ Feingold. In the letter, which has been only partially declassified, the Senators allege that the Homeland intelligence report included a “clearly inappropriate” assessment of “derogatory” information about the unnamed Islamic leader, even though the paper’s overall conclusion that the person in question was not an “extremist”. According to the letter, the Homeland report specifically went on to conclude that the Islamic leader in question was a “mainstream voice” and that information on him “points to politically controversial statements but not to extremism”  -- conclusions that Rockefeller and Feingold declared to be “political assessments that are outside of the bounds of the authorities granted U.S. law enforcement and intelligence entities.”

The letter goes on to note that the Homeland report used “certain questionable” source material to glean “derogatory” information about the Muslim leader, including information from an unidentified source “with obvious political motivation whose stated purpose is to ‘identif[y] the individuals and organizations that make up the left’.”  The senators added that the source also included information on “numerous members of Congress and two former Presidents of the United States.” While details identifying the alleged dubious source have been censored out of the Senators’ letter, a Google search by Declassified for data sources purporting to identify “individuals and organizations that make up the left" led to a single website, Discoverthenetworks.org. The website is one of a number of anti-left and anti-Islamic websites operated by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Los Angeles-based assortment of conservative political organizations founded and headed by David Horowitz, a 1960s-vintage far-left organizer who migrated sharply to the political right.

Horowitz tells Declassified he has no knowledge of the Homeland Security paper the senators complained about. But he says he hopes intelligence officials are consulting his website. American left-wingers, including some members of Congress, have a “long history of … actively working with and collaborating with America’s enemies,” he warns. And he insists that the material on his Web site is “factual,” “not inflammatory” and that his group is “very careful about what it posts… All we do is connect the dots.” He adds that his Web site is regularly consulted by “a lot of TV talk-show producers.”

A former intelligence official says that Charles Allen -- who was in charge of Homeland Security’s intelligence operations when the controversial paper was circulated – strongly defended the paper while being grilled about it behind closed doors by Senate Intelligence Committee staffers.  Allen tells Declassified he will not comment on matters that remain classified, but says he worked harder than anyone to protect civil liberties during his government career. Clark Stevens, a spokesman for Homeland Security’s current management, says: “This administration has actively put into place procedures that ensure all I&A [Office of Intelligence and Analysis] intelligence products compy with a strict wet of standards for production, review and dissemination while protecting the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of the American people. Under the leadership of Under Secretary Wagner, I&A continues to share information with our federal, state, local and tribal partners to ensure that frontline law enforcement have the tools they need to confront and disrupt potential threats.”