A friend sent this earlier from the AlterNet: FBI Deputizes Private Contractors With Extraordinary Powers, Including ‘Shoot to Kill’.
Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does — and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government . . .
. . .
InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption, its website says. And any conversation with the public or the media is supposed to be carefully rehearsed.
. . .
One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation — and what their role might be.
. . .“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out. But that’s not all.
“Then they said when — not if — martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.
This sounds like the Bush administration is putting together a cadre of people who see themselves as privileged insiders, with a duty to spy on, and if necessary, kill, their fellow citizens. They don’t have the training, discipline, structure, or mission of police or soldiers. A group like this can be easily manipulated if they think they are protecting their country. There is no oversight or protection in place to control the kind and quality of information they receive. And no accountability or protection regarding the information they provide. A bunch of people who think they are responsible for guarding the country, who are hopped up on patriotic fervor and fear, thinking they have the right to kill people who frighten them, is something no country needs.
This looks like a country club of vigilantes, using the country club model for membership. You have to be recommended by a member in order to “join”, and are then vetted. This means that there will be an ideological similarity among the members. They are also more likely to look like each other, and less likely to look like a representative cross section of the US population. Open and inclusive are not words that describe this vigilante country club arm of government. How will they decide who looks dangerous?
The claim that Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption should send a chill down the spine of anyone who loves the United States and values the US Constitution. This extra judicial, extra constitutional privatized spying and law enforcement takes the US another step down the road to the privatized model of government found in Congo Brazzaville.
February 11, 2008 at 12:00 am
If domestic terrorist attacks are such an “orange” concern, I suggest freeing our citizens of unconstitutional restrictions on the 2nd Amendment. Or can’t Americans be trusted with relevant threat intel and gun possession?
February 11, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I asked a senior FBI agent about this last night, and he laughed off the “license to kill” as being any more than the common human right to defense. You’ll have to take me for my word, but he does not lie to me.
Never the less, your accurate “country club” analysis of InfraGard is disturbing.
February 11, 2008 at 11:25 pm
brings to mind the stories of the American Protective League from the WWI era
[blockquote]
The U.S. Justice Department secretly empowered private associations as volunteer spy-hunters. One, the American Protective League (APL), earned semi-official status in the national surveillance game, in time growing to enormous size. Founded by a Chicago advertising man, the APL had twelve hundred units functioning across America, all staffed by business and professional people. It was a genuine secret society replete with oath and rituals. Membership gave every operative the authority to be a national policeman.
[/blockquote]
one example of how the APL was used, taken from david cunningham’s there’s something happening here: the new left, the klan, and fbi counterintelligence:
[blockquote]
Meanwhile, in 1917 the United States entered World War I, spurring the growing public concern with alien subversive forces and providing the impetus for a new, Bureau-led campaign to track down those suspected of failing to register for the draft. Enlisting the help of the American Protective League (APL), a volunteer organization of “loyal citizens” devoted to assisting with wartime work, the Bureau initiated a series of “slacker raids” to round up the young draft dodgers. APL membership quickly grew to 250,000 with chapters across the country, and — wearing badges proclaiming themselves an “Auxiliary to the U.S. Department of Justice” — members worked with police and Bureau agents in a series of raids in May 1918 to track down anyone not possessing a draft card. Fewer than 1 percent of the thousands arrested were actually in violation of the draft; many were too old, young, or sick to serve, and many others were registered but happened not to have their draft cards with them at the time. But this didn’t dissuade Bureau agents from repeating the raids four months later, with similar egregious results.
Despite such inefficiency and the questionable effect on constitutional rights, the raid soon became the Bureau’s tactic of choice to round up huge numbers of suspects in a short period of time. [pp. 16-7]
[/blockquote]
February 11, 2008 at 11:42 pm
should’ve also included this commentary in my comment. it ran recently in the san francisco chronicle and brings up some of the possible warning signs which could connect up w/ the story on the new vigilante group – Rule by fear or rule by law?
March 6, 2008 at 9:16 pm
@john
the more guns, the more people die. Pretty much any set of statistics will show you that. I think you also have some interest in Christianity. More guns seems a peculiarly unchristian approach to any problem, if by Christian one means trying to follow the teachings of Christ. I recommend reading Jimmy Carter’s Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis for some Christian perspective on this, and many other relevant issues.
As to the shoot to kill, I doubt that is the main threat to Americans. The main threat is citizens being encouraged to spy on other citizens, as in Castro’s Cuba, or East Germany before the wall came down.
March 6, 2008 at 9:38 pm
@b real
InfraGard sounds a lot like the American Protective League. Thanks for the info, I had not known about that before. As well as spying on fellow citizens InfraGard is likely to lead to more bullying and abuse of individuals and localized minorities. It is quite chilling.
I’ve been hearing about all the detention facilities being built by KBR for several years, but they still seem to be very much under the radar for the public. I find it terrifying, and so corrupt.
I’ve been meaning to reply to these comments for awhile, and do apologize for my slowness. Sometimes I have to think about things for awhile before I can write about them, even when I only have brief comments.
March 7, 2008 at 12:11 am
Crossed Crocodiles, I’m not going to write a rebuttal to that. I am confident in my understanding of Christianity and gun issues.
Despite any disagreement, I still enjoy your blog.