The US Department of Homeland Security has endangered the civil liberties of Americans and spent millions on collecting not counterterrorism intel but “a bunch of crap,” a Senate subcommittee investigation of DHS data fusion centers has found.

The Senate’s bipartisan Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released on Tuesday their findings of a two-year-long probe that has left lawmakers scratching their heads over an array of mismanagement, multi-million-dollar flubs and direct violations of constitutionally-protected civil liberties taking place at fusion centers: special intelligence-processing facilities that now total 77 across the United States.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress tasked the DHS to begin implementing a coast-to-coast system of highly-connected fusion centers that would allow for greater ease in sharing terrorism-related information between state, local and federal authorities. Under the direction of Chairman Sen. Carl Levin and Ranking Minority Member Sen. Tom Coburn, though, the subcommittee that includes lawmakers from both sides of the aisle concludes that the initiative has all but failed at accomplishing its goals.

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