Rendell to overhaul intelligence gathering

HARRISBURG - In the wake of revelations that the state Office of Homeland Security was monitoring peaceful citizen activist groups, the Rendell administration announced plans Wednesday to overhaul its noncriminal intelligence-gathering operations.

Gov. Rendell's chief of staff, Steven Crawford, told a Senate committee that the administration was no longer outsourcing its intelligence gathering. Instead, he said, it would lift a government hiring freeze and bring in five new employees to track threats to the state's infrastructure.

They will work as part of the Pennsylvania State Police intelligence operations center, which handles multiagency intelligence gathering related to criminal activities, Crawford said.

He also said the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the state police would hold biweekly meetings with the governor's office to improve communications.

Crawford led a task force formed to respond to the outcry over the activities of the Institute on Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), which had a $103,000 contract with the Homeland Security Office to help monitor potential threats to the state's infrastructure.

A series of bulletins prepared by the Philadelphia institute showed it was reporting on citizen groups that posed no obvious threat to public safety, including student protesters and opponents of natural-gas drilling.

Homeland Security Director James Powers, who hired the institute, resigned this month amid the controversy. Crawford said there were no plans to fill that post in the three months remaining in Rendell's term.

Crawford told the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee that the ITRR bulletins "went too far," but that there were never any "watch lists" of citizens or groups.

"The ITRR contract, however misused, was entered into legally and with good intentions," he said. "Unfortunately, the content of the bulletins rendered them of marginal value, inflammatory, and hurtful, if not harmful."

At a hearing in late September, George Bivens, director of the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation, told the committee that he and his superiors had warned repeatedly that information provided to Powers' office by ITRR was often inaccurate and almost always useless.

Crawford said Wednesday that no one in the governor's office had been briefed about the breadth and depth of the concerns from state police over the intelligence reports.

Sen. Lisa Baker (R., Lehigh), the committee chairwoman, asked repeatedly if there was any connection between Rendell or any of his current or former staff and ITRR, to which Crawford responded, "Not to my knowledge."

Rendell ordered the ITRR contract terminated last month, saying he had been unaware of the arrangement and appalled to learn of it.