Update: FBI Response to The Progressive Article Alleging the FBI Authorizes InfraGard Members to “Shoot to Kill” [- this is what is called a long non-denial denial -]
Lee Rayburn, one of the most engaging radio hosts in America - The Mic, 92.1 FM (Madison, Wisconsin) - talked to an acquaintance some months back who told him that a U.S. government agency was involved in deputizing businesses' principals in a secret program to be activated in the event of a national emergency.
Rayburn has an ear for a good story; and the source seemed credible, so he mentioned the bare facts on his morning radio show broadcast out of Madison.
Rayburn said he wondered about the facts and treated the matter with due skepticism; but he was disturbed by one aspect: The civilian shoot-to-kill with immunity element of the program. Smells like ... fascism.
Turns out Rayburn is on to something. The program is called InfraGard.
Rayburn also mentioned the story to Matt Rothschild, editor of Madison's The Progressive Magazine.
After a lengthy investigation and rigorous fact checking, Rothschild authored a piece entitled: The FBI Deputizes Business, the March cover story.
Writes Rothschild:
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.
During a period in American history unsurpassed in secrecy, political vindictiveness, corruption and erosion of civil liberties, I recommend giving Rothschild's piece a good read.
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