HARRISBURG -- At best, security bulletins provided by a state contractor were useless compilations of news reports and Internet postings.

At worst, they were inflammatory memos that wasted police officers' time, confused recipients, provided inaccurate information and branded peaceful activists as potential threats to public safety.

That's what panelists and lawmakers said Monday during a three-hour hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee.

Chairwoman Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne, called the hearing to delve into a controversial $103,000 contract with the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, which provided security bulletins meant to warn of potential threats to the infrastructure.

Ms. Baker said she was "absolutely stunned" on Monday after hearing that the Pennsylvania State Police had been questioning the contract for 10 months and had -- to no avail -- alerted Homeland Security Director James F. Powers Jr. to numerous inaccuracies and inflammatory entries in the bulletins.

"I liken it to reading the National Enquirer. Every once in a while they have something right, but most of the time it is unsubstantiated gossip," testified Maj. George Bivens of the state police's Bureau of Criminal Investigations.

He said the bulletins resulted in a waste of police effort to address nonexistent threats based on biased analyses by amateur investigators.

Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, repeatedly lambasted the contract, accused the terrorism research group of running a scam, called its director Michael Perelman "creepy and scary," and said Mr. Powers should be fired.

Lawmakers said the contract was a waste of money, and that the bulletins infringed on activists' rights of free expression and assembly.

"What [ITRR personnel] do is find information that's out there [in the public domain] and you package it. ... You don't do any legitimate investigations or police work," said Mr. Ferlo, who belongs to Green Drinks, a progressive group that held an event listed in one of the security bulletins.

Mr. Powers, who authorized the contract, testified that the anti-terrorism contractor filled an intelligence gap. State police and the FBI were doing a good job alerting local law enforcement to potential threats, but no one was looking out for private industry owners of vital infrastructure, he said.

"I still feel what we were doing was right for the people," he said in an interview after the hearing.

Mr. Powers said he has only one regret: not keeping the governor's office better informed about the scope of the contract. "I should have briefed the cabinet up front," he said after the hearing.

Bulletins warned of such things as the release of a controversial documentary; an outspoken activist's plan to participate in a water-quality check; an education funding rally in Philadelphia; and "several peaceful, silent protests in which activists hold hands briefly in public spaces" to raise awareness of environmental concerns over drilling.

"It's hard to believe that groups seeking education equity, displaying cultural pride and advocating water quality were perceived as threats to the commonwealth," Ms. Baker said during the hearing. "The bulletin information defies common sense, defies any understanding of risk, and defies any regard for the exercise of constitutionally protected rights."

Mr. Powers responded by saying that "no one ever called these groups terrorists or threats." The warnings were meant to provide "situational awareness."

Still, he offered an apology "to any individual group, regardless of their views or affiliation, who felt their constitutional rights infringed upon because they were listed in the bulletin. That was never the intention."

After the hearing, he offered a personal apology to Virginia Cody, an anti-drilling activist from Wyoming County who testified at the hearing that she feels as if the bulletins branded her an extremist or eco-terrorist.

"How many people have been told to watch out for me? That I'm a 'person of interest?' " she had asked during the hearing. "How are you going to erase that alert in people's minds? This is not an 'oops' you can fix so easily."

Ms. Cody brought the controversial contract to light when she alerted media to an e-mail message she received about the bulletins from Mr. Powers, who incorrectly thought she was a gas driller.

"We want to continue providing this support to the Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas stakeholders while not feeding those groups fomenting dissent against those same companies," he wrote in the e-mail message.

Senators did not ask about that e-mail message during the hearing, but Mr. Powers spoke to the Post-Gazette about it later.

He said the bulletins went to a number of different business groups, including commercial tour buses, chemical and fertilizer companies, shopping malls and sports complexes. He mentioned "natural gas stakeholders" in the memo because he believed he was writing to someone from that industry.

"As a private citizen, I'm actually against drilling, but my responsibility as a public official is to support the rights of people legitimately doing business. I have to protect them," he said. "As long as they're legally conducting business with permits to drill, my responsibility is to protect them."

He estimates that more than 100 different groups were mentioned in the 137 security bulletins sent over the last 11 months.

Ms. Baker said her committee may call a second hearing to gather more information.

"We need to know who knew what was going on and what other information was out there," she said. "It's stunning to me how things were operating."

Also Monday, a Luzerne County group that advocates for regulation of Marcellus Shale gas drilling filed a federal lawsuit against Mr. Powers, as well as ITRR and Mr. Perelman.

The Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition was one of the groups in the ITRR bulletins.

In one such bulletin, the coalition's ideas to print fliers, ask questions and attend a picnic were characterized as "militant measures."

The suit, filed in federal court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, seeks monetary damages, as well as a permanent injunction stopping the defendants from conducting domestic surveillance on non-violent groups.

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