Colorado is one among of handful of states where hundreds of firefighters, paramedics, police, and even corporate employees are being trained to hunt down and report a broadly defined range of “suspicious activities.” They’re called Terrorism Liaison Officers. The federally supported initiative trains them to look out for “observed behavior that may be indicative of intelligence-gathering or pre-operational planning related to terrorism.”

The federally supported initiative trains them to look out for “observed behavior that may be indicative of intelligence-gathering or pre-operational planning related to terrorism.” The list of suspicious behaviors includes taking photographs or videos of no apparent aesthetic value; making measurements, drawings, or taking notes; and conversing in code.

The program is gaining traction and Terrorism Liaison Officers have been deployed in at least 8 states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Tennesse, Washington, DC, and Wisconsin. According to “The Denver Post” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is advocating for a nation-wide implementation of the program. But civil liberties watchdogs have come out strongly against the initiative calling it an expansion of domestic surveillance.

Bruce Finley is a staff writer at The Denver Post. His latest article chronicles this story. Its called “Terror Watch Uses Local Eyes.” He joins us in Denver. We’re also joined by Mark Silverstein, the Legal Director of the Colorado ACLU.

Bruce Finley, staff writer for the Denver Post, specializes in International Affairs. His latest article is called “Terror watch uses local eyes.”

Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of Colorado ACLU.

AMY GOODMAN: We are on the road in Denver, Colorado. We are broadcasting from Free Speech TV. I am Amy Goodman.

Colorado is one among of handful of states where hundreds of firefighters, paramedics, police, and even corporate employees are being trained to hunt down and report a broadly defined range of “suspicious activities.” They are called Terrorism Liaison Officers. The federally supported initiative trains them to look out for “observed behavior that may be indicative of intelligence-gathering or pre-operational planning related to terrorism.” The list of suspicious behaviors includes taking photographs or videos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements, drawings, or taking notes, and conversing in code.

The program is gaining traction and Terrorism Liaison Officers, or TLO’s, have been deployed in at least 8 states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, Washington, DC., and Wisconsin. According to the Denver Post, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is advocating for a nation-wide implementation of the program. But civil liberties watchdogs have come out strongly against the initiative calling it an expansion of domestic surveillance.

 BRUCE FINLEY: is with us, a staff writer at the Denver Post. His latest article chronicles this story, called “Terror Watch Uses Local Eyes.” He joins us now from Denver. We’re also joined by Mark Silverstein, the legal director of the Colorado ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!. Bruce Finley, why don’t you lay out what you found.

 BRUCE FINLEY: Well, it’s an effort to get better data in to what federal officials say is a necessary integrated system for early warnings, to try to avert attacks. And so we found out that Colorado now has 181 of these TLO’s, terrorism liaison officers, posted. They are police, firefighters, paramedics, even security officials with the railroad or utility firms. And these are growing out of the Fusion Centers. I’ve been watching the creation of a Fusion Center here in Colorado since about 2005.

 AMY GOODMAN: Explain what that a Fusion Center is.

 BRUCE FINLEY: Intelligence relay stations, places were law enforcement people at a local level could submit a report. And then they are-in Denver, it is a secure room in a state emergency compound just south of the city and that is looped into federal computer networks. And the idea is to look at maybe a seemingly minor incident, but put it together with incidents elsewhere and in doing so, put together a more complete picture, maybe taking a flight lesson is not really a suspicious activity, but if you could look at a lot of flight lessons in different areas, you might put together a pattern. That is the thinking of security officials who are developing these centers and these deployments of TLO’s.

 AMY GOODMAN: So you might have a utility worker, not particularly trained in surveillance but who goes to someone’s home because they are called and maybe the electricity was turned off or something, and they might, well, use that opportunity to spy on what is going on in the person’s home and then put it into a secret government database?

 BRUCE FINLEY: They are reporting their findings, the TLO’s, into secret government databases. And the people-they’re looking for people with broad access to the community who would add extra eyes and ears. That’s the thinking of the folks developing this. It is a work in progress, as are the Fusion Centers. They go through training, I understand from talking with my sources. In Colorado, I think, the course was about 24 hours of training done over three days. Elsewhere, it was more like five days of training.

 AMY GOODMAN: Mark Silverstein, can you talk about your concerns, the American Civil Liberties Union’s concerns about a program like this?

 MARK SILVERSTEIN: Well, sure. This is really-this sounds very familiar because we know that shortly after the current administration rolled out several initiatives to fight the “War on Terror,” many of those initiatives also require sacrificing our civil liberties. And one of those, I think, was called the Total Information Awareness Program. That program caused so much controversy that Congress eventually shut it down. But it is reemerging in other forms. The idea is to gather as much information as possible about as many people as possible and put this all together, allow it to be accessible to government officials who supposedly can analyze the patterns and determine which of those patterns are indicative of possible terrorist activity. The trouble with that, besides sacrificing so much of our privacy for dubious results, is that there will be thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of false positives, completely innocent people going about completely innocent and legal activities who are going to be kicked up by whatever computer logarithm they use. And what is going to happen with the people who are somewhat suspicious or very suspicious in these government programs and government databases? We have already seen the Terrorist Watch List and all of the false positives and all of the innocent people who are detained or singled out for extra scrutiny simply because their names are spelled somewhat similar to the name of somebody who might be a terrorist.

 AMY GOODMAN: Bruce Finley, what did you find when it came to the secret government database? Who monitors it? How do you get on it? How do you get off it? Do individuals have a right to find out if they’re on it?

 BRUCE FINLEY: Well, a lot of this is unclear. As a reporter, I was asking questions about what kind of information is being gathered, under what authority, how it is being shared. It does appear to be something of a work in progress. In the eight states or so, it is done differently. One question I have is whether initial observations are parked in shared access databases. What laws would apply, the state open record law, or if it is a federal database, does it come under federal privacy laws? One thing that got me curious as a reporter also was-there was a reasonable openness and transparency here, but not total. For example, I asked to see a class syllabus for the training and that wasn’t — that was rejected, that request. I also noticed it started without an announcement. It was something, you sort of had to look into and push for to find out about it.

 AMY GOODMAN: I was interested in your interview with Mike German, who is a longtime FBI agent-

 BRUCE FINLEY: A very helpful source-

 AMY GOODMAN: -and his concerns.

 BRUCE FINLEY: Yeah, a very helpful source because he had worked for 16 years with the FBI and now he is advising at the ACLU. And I think the concern is how the information will be shared when it comes into the system. And what will be the criteria, if it is a reasonable suspicion criteria, which is traditional, or as you know, some of these TLO’s are looking into legal activity as well as illegal activity. For example, in Colorado here, one specific the things were bulk purchases of disposable cell phones up to 150 of them. That is interesting, that the security officials can link this type of phone to use of as detonators abroad for roadside bombs. And they have also been sold before abroad to raise money for terrorism. So, the idea is that perfectly legal activity, if it is part of a pattern, it might be of interest.

 AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a stepping up of the surveillance before the Democratic Convention here in Denver?

 BRUCE FINLEY: I had no real sense that this was linked to the convention in particular. Obviously, local security officials are going to be extra vigilant, and looking at things of particular concern with the convention coming up. For example, we have had, I understand, several cases of people impersonating law enforcement officers in Colorado, going to the extent of pulling over vehicles on highways, which is pretty bold. And so that is one among many things that I understand from talking with TLO’s that they’re tracking.