February 09, 2008

FBI public-private partnership group can use deadly force under martial law?

Alternet isn't exactly known for being that credible, so take alternet.org/rights/76388/?page=1 with more than a grain of salt. There's an FBI public-private partnership program called InfraGard consisting of over 23,000 members from security companies, major corporations, and the like. They receive warnings of terrorist threats and in exchange are supposed to report suspicious activity, potential sabotageurs, and the like back to the FBI. You may recall a case that they were involved in:

On November 1, 2001, the FBI had information about a potential threat to the bridges of California. The alert went out to the InfraGard membership. Enron was notified, and so, too, was Barry Davis, who worked for Morgan Stanley. He notified his brother Gray, the governor of California.

"He said his brother talked to him before the FBI," recalls Steve Maviglio, who was Davis's press secretary at the time. "And the governor got a lot of grief for releasing the information. In his defense, he said, 'I was on the phone with my brother, who is an investment banker. And if he knows, why shouldn't the public know?'"

However, the article takes a turn for the he-said she-said:

...InfraGard members, sometimes hundreds at a time, have been used in "national emergency preparation drills," Schneck acknowledges.

...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. He showed me his InfraGard card...

..."[a meeting the owner attended] 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.

Denials and partial confirmations ensue. The ACLU is supposedly concerned about the group, which is certainly a much better use of their resources than enabling illegal immigration. Note that InfraGard isn't covered under the Freedom of Information Act due to "trade secrets".

Posted to Privacy at February 9, 2008 12:16 PM