The targets seem to be groups and individuals deemed politically subversive, and echoing the ruthless targeting of Black activists in the 1960s, simply being Muslim or Arab could be enough to trigger interrogation and detention.

In a pending lawsuit, the ACLU argues that the intelligence-gathering framework underlying fusion centers led Dr. Moniem El-Ganayni, a nuclear physicist and naturalized American citizen, to lose his security clearance at the U,.S. Department of Energy:

During seven hours of interviews, representatives from the DOE and the FBI never questioned El-Ganayni about the possibility of security breaches or the mishandling of classified information. Rather, they questioned him about his religious beliefs, his work as an imam in the Pennsylvania prison system, his political views about the U.S. war in Iraq, and speeches he'd made in local mosques criticizing the FBI's treatment of Muslims in Pittsburgh.

Rolling Stone reported in 2008 on a related homeland security initiative, a “Joint Terrorism Task Force” in Chicago, which enabled police to pounce on just about any suspicious activity they stumbled upon. The steroidal vigilance that fuels such operations is apparent in one officer's comment:

"Most people who come to America who are Middle Eastern come for a good reason. But there's still a percentage that may be here that don't like us. They are with the extremists.”

It makes sense that law enforcement agencies should be able to adapt to new dangers, but the mission of homeland security is metastasizing into something different. For some powerful institutions in our communities, the standard of evidence for flagging people as potential terrorists has become “maybe they don't like us”—and the ghost of a threat seems to be spawning a real one.