Exclusive! The FBI Deputizes Business

[LiberalFighter]

Source: The Progressive 7 Feb 2008

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, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.

InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

/snip/

“Then the FBI cloned it,” says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.

InfraGard itself is still an FBI operation, with FBI agents in each state overseeing the local InfraGard chapters. (There are now eighty-six of them.) The alliance is a nonprofit organization of private sector InfraGard members.

[Kutjara]

1. Chilling, but not really surprising.

Don't you just love how Repubs bleat on and on about freedom and "free enterprise," yet seem to spend most of their time forging ever stronger links between business and government? There's a name for state ownership of the means of production: Socialism. Of course, we can't have a dirty word like that standing out on it's own, so they'll just stick "National" in front of it and everything will be okey doke.

[htuttle]

4. What they're doing is the other way around

It's not state ownership of the means of the production.

It's corporate ownership of the state that they're interested in. There's a name for that, too: Fascism, old school Mussolini-style.

[ursi]

2. more here ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2833327

[BridgeTheGap]

3. Private police, BlackWater, the descent into tyranny marches on n.t

[Demeter]

5. Bet That Sick Fucker Feels Really Manly About It, Too

"One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law"

He's in the same category as James Bond--licensed to kill. Wouldn't recommend he take the FBI's word for it, though. He could be unpleasantly surprised.

[Elspeth]

6. k & r

:kick:

[femrap]

7. K and R

I read that earlier today as well...very creepy. I should be spending more time preparing for this martial law instead of being on line with fellow progressives.

[colonel odis]

8. just because some dipshit waving a card says he can shoot to kill doesn't mean

for one second that he has any authority whatsoever.

sounds like some frustrated swat team type. was his name bernard p. fife, by chance?

and if there's martial law and the .... martials, for lack of a better term, see some chubby business type in his khakis and polo shirt waving around a gun .... well, that'll pretty much be the end of him.