AUGUSTA, Maine — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is again seeking more accountability for a controversial intelligence-gathering unit within the Maine State Police that has been accused of privacy violations in the past.
The latest proposal, introduced by Rep. Grayson Lookner, D-Portland, would create an auditor position to monitor the Maine Information and Analysis Center’s activities. It mirrors another bill that passed both chambers in the previous session and was carried over to this year.
It comes after two previous unsuccessful bipartisan attempts to entirely abolish the unit, which is also known as the fusion center.
During a hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety on Wednesday, several lawmakers and legal experts spoke in favor of the legislation, L.D. 419.
They pointed to allegations of illegal data gathering that emerged about the center in 2020 as part of a whistleblower lawsuit against the state and a separate data breach that same year that published hundreds of the center’s confidential documents.
The only group that publicly opposed the bill was the Maine Sheriffs Association, which argued that it is a valuable tool for small agencies and that an auditor would duplicate the work of the unit’s privacy officer.
During Lookner’s testimony, he argued that the center has violated the civil liberties of Mainers by surveilling individuals engaged in protected First Amendment activities such as protesting the expansion of power lines in the north Maine woods and advocating for racial justice in communities across the state.
“Originally created as a counterterrorism agency tasked with identifying and preventing threats to public safety, it has strayed from that mission in recent years,” Lookner said. “Instead of focusing on genuine threats, the MIAC often turned attention to surveilling Mainers engaged in lawful protected activities at the heart of our democracy.”
Lookner’s bill, which has been co-sponsored by five Democrats and three Republicans as well as an independent, proposes to create the auditor position within the state attorney general’s office. That person would be responsible for ongoing oversight of the center to ensure the transparency and accountability of its operations and to ensure that it preserves privacy and civil liberties.
Among the other supporters of the bill was Michael German, a former FBI agent who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. He argued that fusion centers across the country have failed to develop reliable metrics for assessing their effectiveness.
“Over the last two decades, vast troves of leaked materials have shown fusion centers tracking protestors and casting peaceful, constitutionally protected activities as potential threats,” German testified to the committee.
In a 2020 lawsuit against the state, veteran state trooper George Loder accused the center of keeping a database of Mainers that included people who applied for guns through firearms dealers. He also claimed it surveilled peace activists and kept records of workers at an international camp for Israeli and Arab teens.
In 2022, Loder was awarded $300,000 after a jury found the Maine State Police violated the law when it removed him from a joint law enforcement task force and transferred him to the unit. But the jury did not weigh in on some of the allegations he made about the fusion center, which were not the basis for his legal action.
Other supporters of the new legislation include the Maine chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and Brendan McQuade, an associate criminology professor at the University of Southern Maine who co-wrote a 2022 report that detailed some of the information it has collected.
McQuade argued that the best action would be to shutter the center, but short of that, to create an auditor.
“An independent auditor will at least introduce an external check on an agency that has for far too long operated in the shadows,” McQuade said.
On the law enforcement side, York County Sheriff William King, representing the Maine Sheriffs Association, testified against the bill.
He argued that the center provides an important service for small law enforcement departments. He said that the sheriffs association’s legislative policy committee reviewed the bill and evaluated the center as well as its impact on county-level law enforcement.
“MIAC provides vital resources, expertise, and information to all Maine law enforcement agencies. They have the tools to protect, prevent, investigate and respond to criminal activity,” King said. “As written, this bill duplicates work already being conducted. The auditor position would mirror the work the MIAC privacy officer already produces.”
Major Tyler Stevenson of the Maine State Police spoke neither for nor against the legislation, but he testified that the center operates with the highest levels of transparency and accountability.
“The MIAC continually seeks additional opportunities to increase transparency regarding its daily operations,” Stevenson said.
Stevenson also said the auditor position would duplicate the work of the center’s privacy officer and its current reporting.
