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A recent article in The Progressive magazine has civil liberties activists charging that the US is being turned in a "surveillance society." The story describes InfraGard, an FBI initiative that, according to its critics, "deputizes" business leaders and other private citizens not only to share information about possible security threats but also to "shoot to kill" in the event that martial law is declared in the US. Defenders of the program accuse The Progressive of spreading "misinformation" and "hysteria."
First, here's how the FBI describes InfraGard, which actually existed before the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon:
At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the FBI and the private sector. InfraGard is an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States. InfraGard Chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories. Each InfraGard Chapter has an FBI Special Agent Coordinator assigned to it, and the FBI Coordinator works closely with Supervisory Special Agent Program Managers in the Cyber Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The program started in 1996 as part of an effort to combat cybercrime, and its mission was expanded after the 9//11 attacks. InfraGard members get priority alerts about potential threats to their agencies and businesses, and receive access cards to emergency phone lines to be used to alert the FBI to threats or emergencies they encounter. But Matthew Rothschild, author of The Progressive article, says that the American Civil Liberties Union feels the program is more sinister than that:
“There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,” the ACLU warned in its August 2004 report (.pdf) The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.
Rothschild quotes an ACLU spokesman, Jay Stanley, who worries that the special telephone numbers and secure private networks available to InfraGard members "creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment."
As for the claim that InfraGard members get to shoot the rest of us under martial law, Rothschild says that's what an InfraGard member told him.
A Face in the Crowd wants to know whether InfraGard members are spies or protectors:
Why haven’t we been told more about Infragard, its members and its intentions? What is the real intention behind Infragard? Why aren’t Infragard members making themselves known to their coworkers?
One self-identified InfraGard member, Kat Lippard, says Rothschild is spewing:
"Nonsense. I've been a member of the Phoenix InfraGard Members Alliance for years. It's a 501(c)(3) organization sponsored by the FBI whose members have been subjected to some rudimentary screening (comparable to what a non-cleared employee of the federal government would get). Most InfraGard meetings are open to the general public (contrary to Rothschild's statement that "InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public"), but the organization facilitates communications between members about sensitive subjects like vulnerabilities in privately owned infrastructure and the changing landscape of threats. The FBI provides some reports of threat information to InfraGard members through a secure website, which is unclassified but potentially sensitive information. InfraGard members get no special "shoot to kill" or law enforcement powers of any kind--and membership in the organization is open to anyone who can pass the screening. As Rothschild notes in the first sentence of his article, there are over 23,000 members--that is a pretty large size for a conspiracy plot."
Lippard also says the most InfraGard meetings are open to the public, contrary to another of Rothschild's claims. In fact, I found a public posting of one chapter's public meetings. The Infragard website has an interactive map that links to web pages for local chapters and lists public events going on across the country.
But Dennis Loo isn't mollified:
"As you read this, note that the scenarios being described by the FBI in its meetings with this privatized corporate force and what InfraGard is authorized to do when, not if, martial law is declared (this is how the FBI put it, according to the whistleblower quoted in this story) are entirely consistent with Blackwater forces' behavior in New Orleans after Katrina: protect private property and shoot at will at anyone they wanted to, with no repercussions. Blackwater beat,
