Oregon lawmaker calls for review of state anti-terror center cases amid free speech concerns

An Oregon Democrat with significant experience in public safety wants lawmakers to investigate the work of an Oregon-backed anti-terrorism center currently facing a lawsuit challenging the operation’s existence and alleging it violates free speech protections. 

Rep. Paul Evans, a Monmouth Democrat who co-chairs a public safety legislative subcommittee and serves on the House Emergency Management and Veterans Committee, told the Capital Chronicle in a recent interview that it is “absolutely vital” for Oregon lawmakers to review the work of the Oregon Terrorism Information Threat Assessment Network Fusion Center.

Known as the TITAN Fusion Center, its work in Oregon began in 2007 as part of a nationwide push following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to allow state, local and federal law enforcement to communicate regarding terrorism and criminal investigations. 

Evans has served as a legislative appointee of the Oregon Homeland Security Council since 2018. Civil liberties advocates in recent years have raised concerns that such arrangements are ripe for misuse.

“It was designed to be able to put pieces together rapidly,” Evans said. “It was never designed to be a surveillance system on people who are legally going about their lives.”

His comments follow similar action in California where state lawmakers earlier this year pushed for an audit of their corresponding center amid concern that local police were assisting immigration enforcement. A recent lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Justice, which operates the center, currently sits in front of the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Evans said he didn’t know about the details of that case. But he pointed to federal budget changes affecting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold major portions of anti-terrorism grant funding for states and local governments who refuse to comply with the federal government’s push to audit voter rolls, despite it offering no evidence of widespread fraud or noncitizen voters.

“When you have a system that is designed to prevent harm to society, which the fusion center exists to do, it may or may not have seized on the more, in my opinion, reckless rhetoric, which may have allowed for conversations and surveillance to go where it shouldn’t have gone,” Evans said.

Lawsuit advocates open to legislative guardrails 

Concerns over the anti-terrorism center’s operation in Oregon are not new, with the state agreeing to a 2017 settlement of more than $200,000 with the Oregon Department of Justice’s former top civil rights lawyer, Erious Johnson Jr. He reported discovering that an investigator with the TITAN Fusion Center had searched his social media account for terms such as “Black Lives Matter.” 

But new questions about the center’s enforcement capabilities arose through a 2021 lawsuit filed by social justice activists in Oregon who advocate on issues such as climate change or ecological preservation. In a statement, the group helping to represent those advocates in court seized upon Oregon’s sanctuary law and audits to push Oregon lawmakers to further restrict the operation. 

Joshua Manson, a spokesperson for the Policing Project at New York University’s School of Law, said his group believes Oregon lawmakers must enact a law to authorize the center’s existence if they support it. He pointed to model legislation the group has proposed and said Oregon lawmakers “should consider what guardrails should be in place to ensure public transparency and protect Oregonians’ civil liberties.”

“Regular audits could be included in those guardrails. In the meantime, without a statute authorizing its activities, TITAN’s operations will still be unconstitutional, but audits to assess TITAN’s compliance with Oregon’s new sanctuary protections could be helpful,” he wrote in an email. “Audits would shed light on the degree to which TITAN may be violating Oregon’s sanctuary protections.”

Evans said he understood that “scared people” often “do dumb things” that may end up getting them targeted by the center. But he drew a line in the sand when it came to abolishing the project entirely.

“I’m all for transparency, I’m all for a review committee that basically can go in and look at test cases and say, ‘Are we doing it right or wrong?’ I think that’s part of the reform,” he told the Capital Chronicle. “But throwing away a tool that might help us prevent a serious tragedy, I think is a step too far.”

Jenny Hansson, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Justice, said the fusion center undergoes multiple audits each year, and that every review has shown compliance with state and federal law. 

Asked for a copy of those audits, Hansson said “different agencies do them, and I’m not sure if they’re published.” 

“We’re always happy to work with the legislature on policy changes,” she wrote in an email, “and we welcome that conversation.”