The ACLU of Oregon, along with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Bradley Bernstein Sands LLP, filed an amicus brief with the Oregon Court of Appeals in the case Farrell-Smith, Rogue Climate, 250Eug et al. v. Oregon Department of Justice.
This case challenges that the Oregon the Oregon Terrorism Information Threat Assessment Fusion Center, (TITAN) – housed in the Criminal Division of the Oregon Department of Justice – does not have legal authority to operate in Oregon.
Fusion centers are a network of 80 state-run, multi-agency entities under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as hubs to collect and disseminate so-called “counterterrorism” and other information. Due to a an extreme lack of oversight or guardrails, fusion center activity is opaque, unseen by the public or even by policymakers — leading to abuses of power, invasion of privacy, and surveillance of people engaging in First Amendment activities without evidence of wrongdoing, particularly Black and Indigenous people.
The TITAN fusion center in Oregon is no exception. Appellants’ lawsuit alleges that TITAN has, among other injustices, “for years, engaged in and facilitated the surveillance of environmental advocacy groups, community organizations, and Native American tribes” that were engaging in political activity opposing the development of a pipeline, without any evidence of criminal behavior.
Fusion center surveillance has also involved law enforcement at all levels working with private corporations who had financial interests that surveilled activists were challenging. But Oregon law enforcement do not have authority to operate as private security.
Our amicus supports the arguments that TITAN is unauthorized. The Oregon legislature is best positioned to weigh the benefits and risks of housing a fusion center in Oregon (including risks to privacy, civil liberties, and security for Oregonians) through the democratic process. But they have not done so.
