National Security Agency Staffed US-Only Intelligence 'Fusion Center' in Mexico City Michael Evans and Jesse Franzblau - Upside Down World
go to original November 20, 2013

National Security Agency (NSA) personnel rotated in and out of a U.S.-operated “Mexico Fusion Center” located inside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and provided additional analytic support to the secret intelligence facility’s “high value targeting” mission, according to a 2010 Defense Department (DOD) memorandum obtained by the non-governmental National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act.

The document is perhaps the most detailed and up-to-date declassified account available of Pentagon intelligence programs in Mexico during the last few years. The memo also deepens our understanding of recent U.S. espionage activities in Mexico that came to light as a result of a cache of documents leaked to journalists by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. What emerges are the outlines of a two-track U.S. intelligence program: one, a network of joint intelligence centers staffed by personnel from both countries; the other, a secret facility located inside the U.S. Embassy to which the Mexicans are not invited.

U.S. security assistance to Mexico has skyrocketed under the Mérida Initiative, a $1.9 billion U.S. security package approved in 2008 and aimed at curtailing drug trafficking and related criminal enterprises in Mexico and Central America. The memo was released in response to a FOIA request for documents relating to DOD aid to Mexico under the National Defense Authorization Act from 2008-2012.

The document describes support provided to the Mexico Fusion Center by the Pentagon’s office for Counternarcotics and Global Threats (CN&GT). NSA officials worked inside the fusion center alongside analysts from other Pentagon agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Support for the fusion center flowed mainly through U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the regional military command with responsibility for North America, which also staffed the center with three of its own personnel.

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