By golly, don't you feel ever so safe knowing that Big Brother is around, always keeping an eye on you?
InfraGuard... a collaborative effort between the FBI and the private sector to share information and resources ... to better protect the nation’s critical infrastructure... InfraGuard has developed various offices throughout the country which allow individual members easy access to the organizations resources. Through the website, individuals may locate these local offices, as well as find information about joining the organization, and general membership rules. Members also have access to the organization’s library and publications that provide information about critical infrastructure threats, and new ways of securing various aspects of critical infrastructure. Members also have access to InfraGuard conferences and presentations that deal with issues of critical infrastructure. Membership to InfraGuard is free, but members are required to undergo a background investigation by the FBI.
http://homelandsecurity.tamu.edu/...
And, you get a whole new vocabulary:
Critical Infrastructure
Yumyum. Don't you just love the sound of that? I could just say it over and over and over again.
Critical infrastructure! Critical infrastructure! Critical infrastructure!
But, what the hell does the phrase "critical infrastructure" mean?
Wikepedia has a handy-dandy list of the items in a critical infrastructure, the little things that allow a society (and an economy, we must never forget the economy) to flourish and function:
* electricity generation, transmission and distribution;
* gas production, transport and distribution;
* oil and oil products production, transport and distribution;
* telecommunication;
* water supply (drinking water, waste water/sewage, stemming of surface water (e.g. dikes and sluices));
* agriculture, food production and distribution;
* heating (e.g. natural gas, fuel oil, district heating);
* public health (hospitals, ambulances);
* transportation systems (fuel supply, railway network, airports, harbours, inland shipping);
* financial services (banking, clearing);
* security services (police, military).
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Now that the term "critical infrastructure" has been somewhat defined, we've got to get to the meat of the matter and discuss "infrastructure protection," and there are some interesting observations by Matthew 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.
InfraGard started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats.
.... 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.
http://cantontruth.blogspot.com/...
Yummy! Boys and Girls!
Shoot to Kill!
Martial Law!
Civil Unrest!
All those words make me feel so brave and strong and I get to wear a badge and I get to shoot guns and... and...
Don't dare talk to me about "infrastructure maintenance"!
That is so, so boring! And then you have to talk about taxes and boring and icky stuff like that! And boring things like the commonwealth and the common good and the common everything.
This way I get to be special, with a badge, and a nice warm gun and... and...
And don't dare talk to me about that bridge that collapsed in the Twin Cities, and the falling down schools and underpaid teachers and people without health care. That is sooooo boring.
Guns! Badges! Infrastructure Protection! I want a snare drum, too.
Boom! Boom! Ratatatatata! Boom! Boom! Ratatatatata!