The manufacture of meth requires large amounts of pseudoephedrine, a chemical found in common sinus and cold medications. Because of the dangerous nature of both the end product and the manufacturing process, Iowa law seeks to limit the number of such products that can be purchased by individuals during specific time frames. Those who wish to bypass the law engage several individuals to participate in a process known as “smurfing,” which is making small individual purchases of the products in order to supply the larger needs of the meth lab.

The “meth cook” in this particular ring, according to federal prosecutors, was Anthony Grenier, a 46-year-old resident of Sioux City. Grenier allegedly made pure meth almost daily for about eight months with pseudoephedrine pills supplied to him by 25 to 30 other individuals. In addition, some of those recruited to “smurf” for Grenier are believed to have organized additional individuals to “smurf” for them.

As of this morning, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa, reports that 16 out of the 23 identified defendants have been convicted and sentenced to federal prison terms ranging from 30 months to 23 years. The seven others convicted await sentencing.

“This is the largest meth manufacturing ring ever prosecuted federally in the Northern District of Iowa in terms of the number of defendants involved,” said U.S. Attorney Matt Dummermuth in a prepared statement today. “After Iowa’s 2005 law made it harder for meth cooks to get the pseudoephedrine needed to make meth, there was a huge reduction in homemade meth. However, because of pseudoephedrine smurfing conspiracies like this one, we’re seeing meth production increase again.”

Dummermuth said he hopes such large prosecutions will serve as future deterants to those who wish to set up similar illegal organizations.

Woodbury County Sheriff Glenn Parrett theorized that homemade meth production has increased because law enforcement has stepped up efforts to eliminate foreign drug imports.

“Prices have gone up and quality has gone down, resulting in people turning to making their own,” he said.

Grenier and Angela Walters, 33 and also of Sioux City, received their prison terms after entering guilty pleas with the court. The two acknowledged that they conspired to manufacture more than 50 grams of meth.

Sioux City residents Joshua Brown, Libby Dickes, John Provost, Nathan Dewall, Schauna Carson and Joey Johnson pleaded guilty to conspiring to manufacture more than five grams of meth. Salix resident Jonathan Bush also pleaded guilty to the same charge.

Five additional Sioux City residents — Jon Stolpe, Kelly Sachau, Janelle Bertha Brown, William Dible and Ronald Lewison — pleaded guilty to conspiring to manufacture meth.

Each of the defendants had specific duties within the manufacturing ring. Dewell, 21, did “perimeter checks” while Grenier made meth and obtained anhydrous and other needed items. Dickes, 30, obtained pills and helped to obtain anhydrous on at least once occassion. Stolpe, 40, provided pills to Grenier for use in the illicit manufacturing operation.

Sachau, Lewis, Dible, Walters, Provost, Joshua Brown, Janelle Brown, Carson, Bush and Johnson, who range in age from 23 to 56, all provided pills directly or indirectly to Grenier in exchange for meth.

Individual sentences are as follows:

• Grenier – 274 months in prison, and 10 years of supervised release
• Sachau – 57 months in prison, and 6 years of supervised release
• Lewison – 70 months in prison, and 3 years of supervised release
• Dible – 91 months in prison, $12,500 fine and 3 years of supervised release
• Provost – 150 months in prison, and 4 years of supervised release
• Joshua Brown – 102 months in prison, and 8 years of supervised release
• Janelle Brown – 57 months in prison, and 3 years of supervised release
• Carson – 60 months in prison, and 4 years of supervised release
• Stolpe – 41 months in prison, and 6 years of supervised release
• Bush – 37 months in prison, and 5 years of supervised release
• Johnson – 90 months in prison, and 8 years of supervised release
• Dewall – 108 months in prison, and 4 years of supervised release
• Dickes – 59 months in prison, and 4 years of supervised release
• Walters – 85 months in prison, and 5 years of supervised release

Michael Breaman and Jamie Webster, both of Sioux City, were sentenced last month in connection with their roles in the conspiracy. Breaman, 44, was given 23 years in prison and an additional 10 years of supervised release. Webster, 19, received 30 months in prison and an additional three years of supervised release.

Seven additional defendants, all from the Sioux City area, have either pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial and are awaiting sentencing. Those seven defendants are: Kris Anderson, 30, Deb Faber, 47, Charles Fox, 32, Michael Kluge, 38, Shain Malloy, 39, Jeramie Frederick, 32, and Scott Taylor, 33. Kluge, who was convicted at trial, faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

The case was investigated by the Tri-State Drug Task Force based in Sioux City, which consists of law enforcement personnel from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Sioux City Police Department, South Sioux City (Nebraska) Police Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office, Iowa National Guard, Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, U.S. Marshals Service, South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation and Woodbury County Attorney’s Office.

Even his harshest critics admitted he was a talented parliamentarian and a savvy political strategist. He has even been mentioned recently as a possible Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2010.

But today, Rants’s odds of ever getting elected statewide may have worsened dramatically, as he cast one of only three votes against a bill to alter Iowa’s restrictions on sex offenders once they are released from prison.

The law enforcement community, 49 state senators, and 93 state representatives all agreed that the status quo was unworkable and that the bill, Senate File 340, would strengthen the government’s ability to protect children from predators.  Rants disagreed, pledging to vote “no” on the bill unless an amendment sponsored by current House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha) was attached.

When Paulsen’s amendment failed, even Paulsen voted for the bill.  But Rants voted “no” along with State Reps. Dawn Pettengill (R-Mt. Auburn) and Doug Struyk (R-Council Bluffs), two names that will probably never be mentioned in the same sentence as the phrase “for governor.”

Should Rants run for governor, he should expect to be hit by mailings like this one.  (He might even get hit in his reelection bid as a state legislator if he decides not to run statewide.)

It would be premature to conclude that Rants could not survive the attacks, but his vote today could make his life more difficult than it needed to be. In a crowded field of candidates seeking the GOP nomination for governor, it could certainly make a difference.

(Earlier: Sex offender politics requires strength in numbers)

Update: Rants wrote a long post to explain his “no” vote on his blog.

Senate File 340 ends the law banning some sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care. The new law would create exclusionary zones where registered sex offenders would be prohibited from working or visiting without permission.

“This legislation is strongly supported by Iowa prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and victims’ rights groups,” said Sen. Keith Kreiman, D-Bloomfield, who managed the bill on the Senate floor. “It increases supervision of violent offenders, keeps sex offenders from hanging around schools and other places where children gather, and improves the safety of our communities.”

Despite the unanimous Senate support, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said this morning that House Republicans informed him they were going to try to kill the measure. Republican Rep. Clel Baudler of Greenfield was assigned by McCarthy to floor manage the bill. House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Convicted sex offenders would be prohibited from loitering within 300 feet of an elementary or secondary school; being at an elementary school or day care without permission; working at a school or childcare facility; or loitering within 300 feet of anyplace intended primarily for use by children, such as a playground or sports field. The bill would also allow ankle bracelets to be used to track convicted sex offenders in Iowa.

The “2,000-foot rule,” which passed in 2002 but didn’t go into effect until 2005, has been widely criticized by law enforcement officials as unworkable and failing to adequately protect the public from sexual predators.

Despite the overwhelming opinion that the law needed to be changed, legislators have long been hesitant, fearful political opponents could misconstrue their vote as weakening the bill when they ran for re-election. Those fears were realized when former state Rep. Ed Fallon, D-Des Moines, challenged fellow Democrat incumbent U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell in the 2008 Third District primary. Fallon was the only “no” vote cast when the Iowa House originally passed the bill, and a few weeks before the primary, a 527 group sent our direct-mail fliers saying he was so soft on criminals he even thinks it’s OK for sex offenders to live near schools.

When the possibility of revising the law came up this year, legislators were eager ensure whatever came to a vote on the floor had broad bipartisan support. Lawmakers from both parties have held secret meetings for weeks crafting the bill passed last night.

The 2,000-foot rule would still apply to the state’s most dangerous sex offenders.

The Iowa House is expected to take up the bill Friday. Gov. Chet Culver has indicated he supports the changes.

The new background checks are an expansion of those currently utilized which only use state data.

The decision comes after an Ames resident filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the city, asking for the addresses of past and present Section 8 housing program participants, with the intent to correlate that information with neighborhood crime statistics.

The city and a group of Section 8 housing participants filed for a temporary injunction barring the release, citing a fear that it could jeopardize residents safety. A judge issued the injunction.

“If you take the crime data, and if you map it as a layer over the Section 8 housing data, then you can see if there’s any correlation whatsoever between crime and Section 8 housing,” [said Joe Monahan, who filed the the request]. “Now, if there is correlation, then the city should be aware of it, and they should address it. If there’s not a correlation, then the people who are constantly blamed for every crime that’s committed in town need to be vindicated.”

The Iowa Independent reported in July on Ames’ ongoing work to create a more inclusive community after a surge in criminal activity with some ties to the city’s Section 8 housing program. The city soon became one of several Iowa cities to institute the Iowa Crime Free Multi-Housing Program, a partnership between police officers and rental property managers to help keep a lid on illegal activities.

Rumors and innuendo were stirred again early this month when two homicides were committed in an Ames apartment complex. The local paper, The Tribune, worked quickly to dispell any rumors.

The reader response to the double homicide reported in The Tribune has already soared to predictable conclusions. Why is Ames becoming so violent? Who are these people? Is 1103 Pinon Drive subsidized housing?

Part of us recoils at what we see as thinly veiled racism implied by these questions. But we’re journalists, too, and a question is a question. For the record, the two people killed this weekend in Ames, Shakena Varnell and Michael Odikro, were not participants in the Section 8 Housing and Urban Development subsidy program.

Should it matter?

The Casey's General Store on Lincoln Way in Ames where a man shot and killed the clerk on July 27.

Proponents say the Iowa Crime Free Multi-Housing Program creates a partnership between police officers and rental property managers to help keep a lid on illegal activities. But some fear it will lead to discrimination against those with checkered pasts or will simply create pockets of crime in properties or communities that don’t participate.

Concerns about discrimination not withstanding, police departments in cities like Des Moines, Dubuque and Ames are joining West Des Moines, which adopted the program in 1998, with the hopes that results seen elsewhere will translate to their communities.

“If we can get just a fraction of the results that other cities have gotten when they introduced this program, it will be a tremendous success,” said Harry Samms, community resource officer for the Ames Police Department.

Ames police have been looking at implementing the program for several years, Samms said, but the dramatic increase in criminal activity last fall created additional interest in such a program. According to police and news reports, crime surged in Ames in mid-to-late 2007, and the majority of those involved with the crimes had ties to rental or Section 8 property within the city. Two murders within a month of each other, an armed carjacking and a number of other violent crimes swept the city.

A communitywide meeting was called and an Inclusive Community Task Force was started to tamp down rumors that were running rampant through the city.

One of the suggestions that came from those meetings and the task force’s work was that there needed to be better communication between law enforcement and citizens.

“Communication really is the key,” said Sgt. Tom Shelton, coordinator of the crime-free housing program in Ames.

The tensions in the community were rekindled late last month when a man shot and killed a Casey’s General Store clerk before shooting at a police officer, stealing a squad car and leading police on a 20-minute chase through downtown Nevada and rural Story County.

The chase ended when the man veered off the road and apparently shot and killed himself, police said.

Samms said all the rumor and innuendo that circulated the community during the crime surge could have been avoided with better communication.

The crime-free housing program was originally introduced in the Mesa, Ariz., Police Department in 1992. The International Crime Free Multi-Housing Program has spread to nearly 2,000 cities in 44 states, five Canadian provinces, Mexico, England, Finland, Japan, Russia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Puerto Rico.

According to the Iowa Crime Free Multi-Housing Program handbook, the premise of the program is “keeping illegal activity out of rental property.”

The program has three phases.

Phase 1 is an eight-hour training program in which property managers establish rapport with officers and learn about the civil nature of rental communities.

A certificate is awarded after completing the first stage. Samms said Ames police will be working with landlords to clarify lease agreements in regards to criminal background checking.

“We work together to tighten up their leases, so that they do criminal backgrounds, so they don’t allow people with drug histories, people with violent crime histories, to live there,” Samms said. “Criminal histories along with the better communications has been proven to reduce the crime rates significantly.”

Samms points to Kansas City, which instituted the program several years ago and saw a 60 percent drop in police calls to rental properties.

“Ames has 11,000 rental units in a town of 50,000 people,” he said. “If we could get calls to drop by just 10 percent, that would be fantastic.”

Phase 2 involves crime prevention through environmental design. Recommendations include the addition of deadbolts on all entry doors, viewfinders in doors, anti-lift/sliding devices on sliding doors and windows, strike plates, adequate lighting and proper trimming of bushes. These measures have been proven to reduce crime in other areas of the country, Samms said.

Property owners are required to make the appropriate changes themselves, which could be seen as a monetary hurdle to some owners, but in the long run will make the properties more desirable to renters, Shelton said.

The Ames Police Department.

The third phase, called full certification, entitles owners to post a sign outside of their properties stating that the residence is a part of the Crime-Free Housing Program. A social gathering is held by the property managers, bringing officers and owners together to explain the program to tenants.

The core of the program is not discrimination in housing, Shelton said, but property owners under the program can set higher standards of whom they rent to.

“At the training, we will have a lawyer there to help property owners understand how the law works,” Shelton said. “There is a big chunk of training on discrimination and how to avoid violating Fair Housing laws.”

The Iowa Fair Housing Guide, written by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, does not address the denial of leases to those with criminal backgrounds.

But won’t criminals simply go to the properties which chose not to participate, or, migrate to other municipalities outside the program’s jurisdiction?

“We hope to get everyone on board with this, and eventually spread it to other surrounding communities,” Samms said. “And the background checks won’t stand alone in the process of determining if a person can rent. If it is obvious the person is trying to turn their life around, they will have no problems finding a place to live in our community.”

Samms said the increased communication is the most important part of the program, especially in Ames, where the majority of crime the city experienced did not involve those living in rental housing, but rather those visiting or staying with the renters.

“We are going to try to educate landlords on what they can do to reduce that sort of criminal element in their community,” Shelton said. “I think everyone is pretty excited.”

The inaugural eight-hour training session will be held Aug. 11 at Ames City Hall.

Russell Porter, director of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, was one of a group of people who helped lay the groundwork for the fusion center concept around the country.

Made up of law enforcement personnel and state and federal intelligence analysts, the center has six regional offices around the state and nearly 50 staff members.

Law enforcement says it’s an essential tool. Civil liberties advocates worry that creating one-stop shops for sensitive information could lead to abuses. But the fusion center concept is expanding across the country, and in the process, creating a nationwide intelligence network whose activities are barely known to the public.

Traditionally, police had little to do with counterterrorism. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became obvious that al-Qaeda members had prepared not only in far-off Afghan training camps but also in Minnesota and flight schools in Florida. An unwitting Maryland state trooper actually stopped one of the future hijackers for speeding.

Fusion centers are where the federal, state and local cops share intelligence, sift data for clues, run down reports of suspicious packages, and connect dots in an effort to detect and thwart drug smuggling, gang fighting and other menaces to society.

Russell Porter, director of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, said the center has been very successful at its mission since it was first established 3 1/2 years ago.

“There are challenges and concerns, and we are very aware of that,” he said. “It works for Iowa because we have worked to give authority to local officials to dictate the fusion center’s direction.”

Porter’s career in Iowa law enforcement dates back to 1978, with a focus on intelligence since 1984. In the national intelligence community, Porter is well-known and respected. He was working on his doctoral thesis on intelligence gathering in law enforcement when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened, and along with a number of groups and organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Porter helped craft a plan to fix what went wrong with domestic intelligence gathering while protecting fundamental rights of privacy and civil liberties.

“When 9/11 happened, suddenly there was the political will in Washington and around the country to do something,” he said. “A few of us put together the IACP Criminal Intelligence Sharing Summit in March of 2002. A colleague of mine and I served as the technical writers for that report, which was published in August of 2002. It called for the creation of a national criminal intelligence sharing plan and a criminal intelligence coordinating council.”

That laid the groundwork for “fusion centers,” with an underlying goal of keep Americans safe. Whether or not that has happened is something that is difficult to quantify. Porter, for one, does not see terrorism as the biggest threat facing Iowans.

“It’s a cliché, but, yes, Americans are safer, but we are not yet safe,” he said. “We need to keep a realistic perspective on the threats that we face. In cities across America, we still have significant gang problems. There are still issues with domestic violence. We still face those community problems. We’re stronger at how we deal with those things, and I think we’re better informed, but the danger persists.”

While the initial idea behind creating these centers around the country was to combat terrorism, the mission in Iowa has evolved to the point where its biggest successes deal with home-grown crime.

Operations are divided by regions, with Fusion Offices in Sioux City (Region 1), Waterloo (2), Oelwein (3), Atlantic (4), Des Moines (5), and Blue Grass (6). (Click for full size)

The organization

The Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center was established in December 2004. But unlike a lot of states that are building similar networks across the country, Iowa had a head start. The Fusion Center was built on the skeleton of the Iowa Law Enforcement Intelligence Network (LEIN), a system designed to share information among law enforcement agencies that has been in place since 1984.

“We took something that has been around since 1984 and said let’s invest in it to strengthen it and make it operate more smoothly,” Porter said. “So we took each of our six LEIN regions and determined one agency in each region that was willing to step up and served as the grantee for the fusion office. Really, this is just a strengthening of capabilities we’ve had in place for decades. ”

The six regional offices are located in urban areas such as Des Moines, Sioux City and Waterloo, but also in rural outposts like Atlantic and Independence. There are 21 total staffers working in the regional offices around the state, ranging from two staffers in the Region 6 office in Blue Grass to five staffers in the Region 4 office in Atlantic.

The headquarters for the state’s fusion centers is led by the Iowa Department of Public Safety (IDPS) and located in the department’s offices in the State Capitol Complex at 215 E. Seventh St. in Des Moines. There are 23 staff members, including 10 intelligence analysts and 13 law enforcement officers. Among the staff are representatives from the Iowa State Patrol, the State Division of Narcotics Enforcement, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Iowa Fire Marshall’s office and The Midwest High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also supplies two staffers to the fusion center.

Porter expects an analyst from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to be assigned to the Iowa Fusion Center soon.

Dennis Rudolph, operations supervisor at the Region 4 Fusion Center, said the major difference between LEIN and the fusion centers is “the difference between reactive and proactive.”

“LEIN was a reactive thing,” he said. “You bring people together and they say what problems they were having this month, everyone talks and if a couple match up, they get together and they talk and compare notes. The fusion center is more proactive, using our resources to say this is a problem happening in western Nebraska which seems to be moving east, so you should be aware.”

Each regional office is somewhat autonomous, Porter said, forming its own governing structure depending on local needs. Each regional supervisor reports to Porter, who reports to Iowa Department of Public Safety Commissioner Eugene Meyer, who reports to Gov. Chet Culver. There is also a LEIN Executive Board, made up of seven members: a law enforcement officer from each region and Porter.

Federal funding cut

Almost 90 percent of the main fusion center’s funding comes from state appropriation and the IDPS’ budget, Porter said. The agencies that supply staff to the center, like the FBI, cover their salaries, but the rest falls under the domain of the IDPS.

The six regional offices, on the other hand, are funded almost entirely out of federal Department of Homeland Security grants. In fact, one of the biggest determining factors of whether a municipality would be the site of a regional office was its willingness to take on the responsibility of working to attain federal grant money.

“As you can imagine, it can sometimes be very arduous,” Porter said.

To make matters more difficult, the federal government has cut the amount of money it puts into the fusion center program in recent years. According to an October 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office, Homeland Security grants totaled more than $130 million from 2004 to 2006. But in 2006, the total amount allocated dropped from $57 million to $43 million. Iowa was not immune.

“I think next year is going to be tough for us,” Rudolph said. “I think some thought has gone into turning to local municipalities to try to get some funding, but budgets are tight. I think law enforcement and emergency management are going to lose something very good if the federal government squeezes this program financially.”

The mission expands

The intelligence scope of the Iowa fusion centers is defined as “all crimes,” not just counterterrorism.

This all-crimes approach is essential, Porter said, in order to keep Iowans safe and protect the country against terrorism. Rudolph said while you won’t see cases in Iowa opened because “someone is a terrorist,” you will see someone busted early on before getting the chance to commit a terrorist act. Groups plotting terrorist attacks could first commit crimes such as money laundering, drug dealing or illegal gun sales to finance their operations.

“You have to fund terrorism somehow, and a lot of times it’s through illegal activity,” he said. “We start seeing a guy in Iowa selling dope, then all the sudden you see his name come up in a meeting with Nebraska, and he’s selling guns there. You start looking at him a little harder.”

Porter said the Iowa fusion centers follow the traditional model for the intelligence process. That begins with defining information requirements, or things that are important for people to know about. For example, crimes involving children are required to be reported up the chain of the fusion center. So earlier this year when a man tried to entice a young girl into his car in rural Guthrie County, local law enforcement told the fusion office, which reported it up to the central fusion center. That is when it was determined that another incident had occurred, which warranted a bulletin to be sent out to law enforcement personnel.

“I hate using this phrase, but it is our job to connect the dots,” Porter said.

In August 2006, the Department of Homeland Security issued “Fusion Center Guidelines,” which, among other things, defined information requirements on a federal level. Now, certain information is automatically shared with surrounding states or the Department of Homeland Security.

When information comes down from Washington, D.C., sometimes there is a disconnect, Porter said.

“Sometimes, priorities may be different, or lexicon might be different,” he said. “That’s why it’s important to get everyone on the same page.”

The Iowa fusion centers also played a role in the recent flooding. While their mission does not include “all hazards,” as some states’ do, Rudolph said the fusion centers, since they work with many different agencies, can work to help them overcome their interoperability issues.

One of the best aspects of the fusion centers, Rudolph said, is the fact that it has created a working relationship among law enforcement on many levels.

“It is very helpful that we all are starting to know one another and work together regularly,” he said. “Prior to the fusion centers, no one really knew who to turn to or talk to. Now, we work with the FBI, [the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms], [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and several other agencies at least a couple times a month. That was unheard of before.”

Porter said in many cases, criminal activity cannot be ruled out right away, so it is the fusion center’s responsibility to become involved.

“If a chemical plant explodes, it could be criminal, it could be human error, it could be negligence. You can’t rule anything out,” he said.

The fusion centers’ job is not investigative, Rudolph said, but rather as a way for all information to be gathered in one location, analyzed and sent to the places it needs to go.

“We’re a clearinghouse for intelligence, not a storage facility. We’re a middle man,” Rudolph said.

The Iowa fusion centers have access to national data bases such as Law Enforcement Online and Regional Information Sharing Systems Intranet. They also have access to Homeland Security Information Network, but only the “controlled but unclassified” version. Porter anticipates that with the addition of a Department of Homeland Security employee to the fusion center staff, the center will gain access to the “secret” version of the network.

“We think the fusion center would benefit from the assignment of a U.S. DHS employee, and access to HSDN-Secret, so that the DHS employee is here and the system is accessible before the onset of a crisis,” he said. “We also know that the information environment is constantly changing, so we are always keeping an eye out for information systems that might be developed that will help us serve Iowa and our communities better.”

A threat to civil liberties?

Civil liberties advocates worry that the growing tentacles of these networks, linking many government agencies and potentially private industry as well, could breach the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

They argue that laws were put into place to avoid these types of networks because history has shown they lead to abuse. They add that the “all crimes” approach sounds suspiciously like the government is building a distributed domestic intelligence service that could easily begin keeping tabs on Americans who are doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.

“We don’t think we have to give up the privileges that come with being a law-abiding citizen in order to be safe,” said Ben Stone, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa. “The danger with this sort of thing is that you end up making everyone a suspect, and that’s not the way you do law enforcement.”

Earlier this year, the ACLU issued a report entitled “What’s Wrong With Fusion Centers,” which cited concerns about military units operating in the centers, as well as the potential for scope creep and data mining. How, the group asked, can citizens contest information about themselves, given the patchwork of state, local and federal sunshine laws that may or may not apply?

Porter not only understands the concerns, he takes them very seriously.

In April, he testified before Congress about the history of the fusion center concept, and the history of the abuse of civil liberties by law enforcement in the name of making the country safer. He pointed to the FBI’s notorious Counter Intelligence Program, known as Cointelpro, during the 1960s and early 1970s, which included a series of covert and often illegal projects aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. When exposed, Cointelpro was greeted with lawsuits, complaints and headlines, and the program was shut down.

“It is critically important that we avoid the historical practices that led to reoccurring violations of privacy rights and civil liberties,” Porter said in his testimony.

Since his testimony before Congress, Porter said he has been traveling the country to teach other state fusion centers the history of intelligence gathering abuse, in the hopes that it will remain a priority.

“It has got to be given high visibility and high attention because it is one of the things that causes us to fail in this business,” he said. “From my past study and research, it’s a pivot point to success or failure. It’s essential to protect the principles on which this country was founded. With the fusion centers, we built on the history, successes and the problems that we had in the past.”

Standards for centers include a ban on information concerning the political, religious or social views of an individual or group unless the information is directly related to criminal activity. Also, there must be a reasonable suspicion that an individual is involved in a crime before information is collected.

“These have been court tested, civil liberties advocates find them acceptable and so we held those out to make sure that if you’re going to do this business, you need to adhere to those regulatory frameworks,” Porter said.

“There is so little that is publicly known about the fusion centers,” the ACLU’s Stone said. “I think that is why some people are worried. History has shown that when people get unfettered power, it will be abused. So I believe there should be an inherent skepticism with this.”

An uncertain future

Iowans can rest assured that law enforcement is doing everything it can to keep them safe, Porter said. But there are storm clouds on the horizon for the fusion center program in Iowa and nationally.

A decrease in federal funding could mean a loss of training for many employees, Porter says, which could lead to the types of abuses civil liberties activists fear.

“What you run the risk of is people doing this work without the proper training, and then we have the problems we have had in the past,” he said. “I think fusion centers are a good way to spend money, because they can help in so many areas, like anti-drug, anti-gang and anti-terrorism. I think we’re on the right path. I just hope we don’t take a step backward.”

Rudolph said losing funding could be a major blow to law enforcement in Iowa.

“What can be accomplished is really incredible,” he said. “In the past, you might have two deputies and a sheriff trying to work a burglary ring that involves multi-counties and multi-states. Now, you have 60 officers from all these counties and states going after it. It’s a huge difference.”

So if the program is making people safer, why is it suddenly having problems getting the federal government to pay for it?

“I think the further away we get from 9/11, the more we start to lose some of the urgency of this type of thing,” Porter said. “I think that’s part of it. But even more than that, I think it becomes one of many priorities for the government to spend money on. Lots of really good programs end up falling through the cracks. The hope on the ground is that this doesn’t become a victim of that sort of thing.”

See also, Minnesota Independent on fusion centers: “You don’t know MN-JAC: Anti-terror fusion center grapples with security flaw, new privacy policy.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was conducting experiments to move inner-city poor to smaller communities, and Ames' Section 8 housing was being filled by poor black people from Chicago. There was a crime wave in Ames because black people from Chicago were  moving in to local subsidized housing. Local schools were struggling with discipline, and the halls had become unsafe.

For Ames Mayor Ann Campbell, the rumors became too much to handle.

"There was a lot of misinformation going around," she said. "And there was a lot of finger pointing going on. I felt like we needed to do something about it."

The city's government decided to put the issue front and center, no matter how difficult it would be, and called a community meeting to discuss race relations.

"I still remember sitting in my office with a group of people trying to figure out what to call the meeting," she said. "It was not an easy topic to address. Race is a very delicate issue."

But the meeting, titled "The Changing Cultural Climate of Ames," was held.  The city's leaders, including the chief of police and City Council, discussed the issues openly.

The forum attracted a capacity crowd in the council chambers and nearly filled the upper level of the city's auditorium. It focused primarily on a notion among many residents that an influx of Section 8 recipients from the Chicago area was causing crime rates to rise. Police have said in the past that many of the suspects, witnesses and complaining parties connected to a surge of major crimes in the city had Chicago backgrounds. However, the connection between these criminals and the Section 8 program appears to be more marginal than direct, officials said.

But as usual, the truth is a little more complicated.

According to police and news reports, criminal activity surged in Ames in mid-2007, and the people involved not only had a connection to Chicago, they had a connection to each other. Two murders within a month of each other, an armed car jacking and a number of other violent crimes swept the city, and in each case, the perpetrators or the witnesses were connected to Chicago. At the time, police said it was not those living in Ames' Section 8 housing committing the crimes, but rather people connected to those individuals who came to Ames to visit or stay.

Woods said the crime rate is cyclical and has very little to do with an increase in people with "brown skin" moving to town.

"The visual people were seeing when they were walking downtown was a lot browner than what they were accustomed to," said Barbara Woods, who co-chaired the Inclusive Community Task Force that was impaneled by the Ames City Council after the forum. "And at the same time, people thought the town was becoming more violent. It was all about perceptions."

The demographic changes experienced in Ames are occurring in towns across the country. Campbell said at a recent meeting of the Iowa Metropolitan Coalition, an organization that represents the state's largest cities, that she was asked about Ames' experience by a number of municipal leaders from communities that are experiencing similar issues.

Woods, a black woman who has lived in Ames for 30 years, said the difference is that Ames has always prided itself on being a very inclusive community. But the tolerance was partially because the city is home to Iowa State University.

"The people coming into our city were part of the university, so they were only here for a short time," she said. "Then, people start moving to Ames that have dark skin, and their kids are going to public schools and they are living away from campus. We can be very inclusive when we know the people are going to leave, but these were people who were obviously here for the long term, and I think that changed things."

Ames, according to census figures, is 87.3 percent white. And it's floating in the middle of an ocean of white people in Iowa, where 93.9 percent of residents are not people of color. The largest group of non-whites in Ames are Asians, which make up 7.7 percent of the population. 

Until recently, diversity meant graduate students living in essentially the same socioeconomic strata as the average citizen of Ames, Woods said. And for many of the new residents of Ames, the welcome wagon was not rolled out.

"People were suspicious," Woods said. "They spread false rumors. It was not a very welcoming atmosphere."

Campbell said most of the new residents were here because they had family in the area and because they wanted a better life away from big cities. There were a number of people, and not just blacks but also other minorities, who came to Ames because of Section 8 housing, she said, but there was not one single factor to why Ames was becoming more diverse.

"This was a different population and one that has had a history of poverty," she said. "So we decided to put our heads together and figure out how to make Ames a more welcoming place for everyone."

The Inclusive Community Task Force aimed to do something about that. Several meetings were held earlier this year, and in May it submitted a report to the Ames City Council on how to take the initial steps to make the city more welcoming to new residents.

The 34-page report is posted on the city's Web site, www.cityofames.org, and contains a list of "challenges" and "opportunities" facing the community in respect to changing cultural diversity.

The report outlines what nearly everyone in the community can do to make the community more inclusive. Suggestions run from holding informal "getting to know you" neighborhood gatherings to implementing employer training to establishing a "Welcome to Ames" packet of information. The report recommends the city of Ames gather and disseminate demographic data to present an accurate picture of the community, not one based on anecdote.

Since the initial forum and the task force meetings, Campbell said she has had a number of people who are new residents visit her and talk about the issues they are facing.

"I think just having the conversation helped," she said. "It put the issue on everyone's radar and opened up a dialogue that I think is very helpful."

Woods said it's still too soon to tell if the discussions were a success, but there are certainly conversations happening today that weren't happening in November.

"Long term, I hope it opened up some minds and makes people less tolerant of unacceptable behavior," she said. "If they hear someone spreading terrible rumors, I'd hope they would step up and say something."

Todd Michael Younk was arrested at his Windsor Heights residence Tuesday night while the UNI campus remained in lockdown. According to Younk’s MySpace page he attends Roosevelt High School in Des Moines. Bond has been set at $10,000 on the aggravated misdemeanor. He could pay a fine of up to $5,000 and serve up to two years in prison. It is unclear if Younk had a weapon in his possession at the time of his arrest.

The threats toward a female student who lived in UNI’s Dancer Hall were reported to come by phone, both voice and text messages. The threats, deemed credible by campus police, prompted the first-ever use of the university’s emergency alert system. Students, faculty and staff were originally warned to stay away from Dancer Hall, a co-educational dormitory that houses approximately 600 students. Later, the alert system advised avoiding the entire Tower complex of which Dancer is a part. Students in the dormitory were told by loudspeaker to lock themselves into their rooms, turn off lights and avoid windows and doors.

University police worked with both the Cedar Falls Police Department and the Iowa Highway Patrol throughout the incident. While law enforcement did not believe Younk to be on campus or even in Cedar Falls from the start of the incident, precautions were taken to protect students. Law enforcement blocked all entrances to Dancer Hall and searched all 12 floors of the building.

In total, the campus remained on lockdown between 2 and 3 hours. The all-clear was not sounded until police confirmed Younk was in custody around 7:50 p.m. Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning, campus officials were pleased with the performance of their alert system, and grateful that the incident ended without injury. According to UNI spokesman Jim O’Conner, a review of the system — which had its first full-scale test run at the end of February — will be completed today.

Charles Green, head of the University of Iowa’s campus police, said the Nite Ride service will run from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. weekends and will take any woman from a downtown pick-up point to “any residence or apartment” within a defined area in central Iowa City.

Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine said the assaults began in August 2006, and police noticed common patterns in the attacks early on.  “It’s not somebody who just stopped in town — it’s somebody who’s been in our community for at least year,” he said. There are least four perpetrators, with one man responsible for “many” of the more than 30 cases.  “We worried from the beginning about copycats,” said Green, “and that’s what we’re seeing.” One man has been arrested, in in jail, and linked to at least three of the more than 30 cases.Previous night-safety programs in Iowa City have fizzled.  A Safe Walk program ended last year because it was under-used, said student government vice president Carole Peterson.  “It was hard to know who was walking you home,” she said, explaining the program didn’t have background checks on volunteers.  “By doing this through the campus police, people will feel safer,” she said.

Audience questions from the crowd of 75 at Iowa City’s historic Englert Theater  were written on cards and funneled through the forum’s moderator, County Attorney Janet Lyness.  It seemed that a common concern was fear that people using the Nite Ride service, or reporting assaults, would be charged with public intoxication or underage drinking.  The issue is especially hot in Iowa City this fall, as voters consider a ballot issue that would ban young adults under age 21 from bars.

Lyness says her office has a long-standing policy of not charging sexual assault victims for underage drinking or public intoxication. But Green warned that Nite Ride “is not a drunk bus.”

“One person throwing up in that van ends it for everyone, because we have to take that bus out of commission and clean up,” Green said. The program will not conduct breathalyzer or other formal tests on riders, Green said, but it reserves the right to refuse service to severely intoxicated persons. While panelists Peterson and Lyness emphasized that a victim is never to blame for sexual assault, Green said, “If people are so intoxicated to that point, you have to wonder if they’re concerned about their personal safety.”  Alcohol has been involved in most cases, said Hargadine, but no victims have been charged.

Hargadine characterized the perception that Iowa City police “spend too much time working on PAULA (possession of alcohol under legal age) arrests” as inaccurate, saying, “Our primary focus is the overall safety of everyone downtown.”  Hargadine recently revealed that his department had used female officers from Iowa City and other nearby jurisdictions as decoys in an attempt to catch perpetrators.  “Some have been hit on, some have been asked ‘don’t you know there’s a problem, you shouldn’t be walking alone,’ but no one has been attacked,” he said.  Hargadine declines to say if the tactic would be used again as Iowa City gears up for this weekend’s homecoming football game.  “Are we going to do it this weekend?  I’m not going to tell you.”

Hargadine, who started as Iowa City police chief just last year, implied that the progressive nature of the Iowa City community may be behind the level of outrage, which has included a petition to the city council signed by 5,000 students.  “Iowa City hasn’t had to deal with this kind of repetitive crime,” he said.  “It’s a matter of how we treat all people, men and women, gay and straight.”

Iowa City Council Member Amy Correia said the city was looking at a variety of measures, including improved lighting and a possible partnership with the university to expand the ride program. She also said she’s been contacted by someone wanting to start a citizen’s neighborhood patrol.  Correia emphasized the importance of existing community services to women, including the Rape Victim Advocacy Program and the Domestic Violence Intervention Project.  “Go to the experts who deal with this every day to see how you can get involved.”

But ultimately, Correia said, attitudes need to change to stop the assaults.  “We need to create a climate where it’s not OK to degrade or demean women in any way; it’s not OK to violate someone else,” she said.  “Send the message that Iowa City won’t tolerate this.”