Main Core: A List Of Millions Of Americans That Will Be Subject To Detention During Martial Law

Are you on the list?  Are you one of the millions of Americans that have been designated a threat to national security by the U.S. government?  Will you be subject to detention when martial law is imposed during a major national emergency?  As you will see below, there is actually a list that contains the names of at least 8 million Americans known as Main Core that the U.S. intelligence community has been compiling since the 1980s.

A recent article on Washington’s Blog quoted a couple of old magazine articles that mentioned this program, and I was intrigued because I didn’t know what it was.  So I decided to look into Main Core, and what I found out was absolutely stunning – especially in light of what Edward Snowden has just revealed to the world.  It turns out that the U.S. government is not just gathering information on all of us.  The truth is that the U.S. government has used this information to create a list of threats to national security that the government would potentially watch, question or even detain during a national crisis.  If you have ever been publicly critical of the government, there is a very good chance that you are on that list.

The following is how Wikipedia describes Main Core…

Main Core is the code name of a database maintained since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States. Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security. The data, which comes from the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources, is collected and stored without warrants or court orders. The database’s name derives from the fact that it contains “copies of the ‘main core’ or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.”

It was Christopher Ketchum of Radar Magazine that first reported on the existence of Main Core.  At the time, the shocking information that he revealed did not get that much attention.  That is quite a shame, because it should have sent shockwaves across the nation…

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

Of course, federal law is somewhat vague as to what might constitute a “national emergency.” Executive orders issued over the last three decades define it as a “natural disaster, military attack, [or] technological or other emergency,” while Department of Defense documents include eventualities like “riots, acts of violence, insurrections, unlawful obstructions or assemblages, [and] disorder prejudicial to public law and order.” According to one news report, even “national opposition to U.S. military invasion abroad” could be a trigger.

So if that list contained 8 million names all the way back in 2008, how big might it be today?

That is a very frightening thing to think about.

Later on in 2008, Tim Shorrock of Salon.com also reported on Main Core…

Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as “Main Core,” the database reportedly collects and stores — without warrants or court orders — the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security. According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as “an emergency internal security database system” designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law.

So why didn’t this information get more attention at the time?

Well, if Obama had lost the 2008 election it might have.  But Obama won in 2008 and the liberal media assumed that he would end many of the abuses that were happening under Bush.  Of course that has not happened at all.  In fact, Obama has steadily moved the police state agenda ahead aggressively.  Edward Snowden has just made that abundantly clear to the entire world.

After 2008, it is unclear exactly what happened to Main Core.  Did it expand, change names, merge with other programs or get superseded by a new program?  It appears extremely unlikely that it simply faded away.  In light of what we have just learned about NSA snooping, someone should ask our politicians some very hard questions about Main Core.  According to Christopher Ketchum, the exact kind of NSA snooping that Edward Snowden has just described was being used to feed data into the Main Core database…

A host of publicly disclosed programs, sources say, now supply data to Main Core. Most notable are the NSA domestic surveillance programs, initiated in the wake of 9/11, typically referred to in press reports as “warrantless wiretapping.” In March, a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal shed further light onto the extraordinarily invasive scope of the NSA efforts: According to the Journal, the government can now electronically monitor “huge volumes of records of domestic e-mails and Internet searches, as well as bank transfers, credit card transactions, travel, and telephone records.” Authorities employ “sophisticated software programs” to sift through the data, searching for “suspicious patterns.” In effect, the program is a mass catalog of the private lives of Americans. And it’s notable that the article hints at the possibility of programs like Main Core. “The [NSA] effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called black programs whose existence is undisclosed,” the Journal reported, quoting unnamed officials. “Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach.”

The following information seems to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

This stuff is absolutely chilling.

And there have been hints that such a list still exists today.

For example, the testimony of an anonymous government insider that was recently posted on shtfplan.com alluded to such a list…

“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.

What in the world is happening to America?

What in the world are we turning into?

As I mentioned in a previous article, the NSA gathers 2.1 million gigabytes of data on all of us every single hour.  The NSA is currently constructing a 2 billion dollar data center out in Utah to store all of this data.

If you are disturbed by all of this, now is the time to stand up and say something.  If this crisis blows over and people forget about all of this stuff again, the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us will just continue to grow and continue to become even more oppressive.

America is dying right in front of your eyes and time is running out.  Please stand up and be counted while you still can.

 

 

http://www.rightsidenews.com/2013061132689/us/homeland-security/main-core-a-list-of-millions-of-americans-that-will-be-subject-to-detention-during-martial-law.html

Ron Paul Criticizes Boston Lockdown: ‘We Had Martial Law Out There,’ ‘It’s Criminal’

Mourn For America: Whenever A Tragedy Happens They Take Even More Freedom From Us

What in the world is happening to America?  Over the past couple of decades, the federal government has used just about every major national tragedy as an excuse to take even more liberty and freedom away from us.  And without a doubt, the Boston Marathon bombing was a great national tragedy.  I don’t think that any of us will forget the images that we have seen over the past week.  All of those responsible for this attack should be exposed, hunted down, tried and punished.  Unfortunately, what always seems to happen is that it is the American people that seem to get punished the most for these tragedies.  Over the past couple of decades we have been told again and again that if we will just give up a little bit more freedom that the authorities will be able to keep us safe.  But you know what?  It is IMPOSSIBLE for them to keep us safe.  There is no way in the world that the federal government can protect us from all of the bad guys in the world.  We are a country that is absolutely teeming with “soft targets” – malls, churches, schools, concerts, sporting events, etc.  No matter how much money we spend, there is no way that the federal government will ever be able to provide enough security for all of those soft targets.  Even if our society morphed into something that resembled George Orwell’s “1984”, the government would still never be able to guarantee our safety.  Unfortunately, in the aftermath of this attack there will inevitably be calls for “increased security” and “more anti-terror legislation”.  The answer always seems to be to expand the emerging police state.  But it is getting to the point where all of this “security” is becoming absolutely suffocating, and yet it doesn’t seem to be keeping us any safer.  So where does all of this end?  Are we going to completely throw out the entire U.S. Constitution in a desperate attempt to feel a little bit safer?  Or are we going to choose to live our lives without fear no matter what others may try to do to us?

Benjamin Franklin once made the following statement…

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Sadly, the way that the American people have responded to national tragedies over the past couple of decades would have made our founding fathers greatly ashamed.  The American people have beenway too willing to give up liberty in exchange for the promise of safety.

We have been told that the terrorists hate us because of our liberties and freedoms.  But we have also been told that in order to be “safe” from those terrorists we have got to give up those liberties and freedoms.

So who is really winning?

We seem to have forgotten some of the most basic lessons in life.

If you cower in fear when a bully comes after you, what is the bully going to do?

The bully is just going to keep coming after you because his actions are being rewarded.

Those that are trying to create fear love it when you become fearful.  It is exactly what they want.

The appropriate response to a great national tragedy is to reject fear and to continue to boldly live our lives as if nobody could ever shake us.

But instead, the atmosphere of fear in America continues to grow.

And yes, there are common sense things that our government should be doing to keep bad guys away from us.

For example, the number one thing that the federal government should be doing is to secure the border.  Every single day, thousands upon thousands of people that we don’t know anything about pour into this country.  And yet the federal government has absolutely refused to secure our borders for decades.

Until the federal government secures our borders, they should not ask any of us to sacrifice a single ounce of liberty or freedom in the name of “national security”.

But even as the Obama administration treats our border security like a joke and continues to import huge numbers of people from radical areas of the Middle East, they continue to tell us that “domestic terror” is the next great threat that we are facing.

Many of our other politicians are buying into this philosophy as well.  Senator Lindsey Graham says that the attack in Boston is a perfect example of “why the homeland is the battlefield“.

So if “the homeland is the battlefield”, then who is the enemy?

Well, a U.S. Army Reserve training presentation recently identified evangelical Christians as “religious extremists“, and since Barack Obama entered the White House there have been numerous government reports that have identified Christians, “constitutionalists”, patriots, anti-abortion activists, conspiracy theorists and gun owners as “potential terrorists”.

So where does all of this end?

Are the American people rapidly becoming the enemy?

Will we be constantly scared to death of one another?

Will the entire nation exist in a never-ending environment of fear?

Will we eventually have the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security patrolling every mall, every church, every school, every concert and every sporting event?

Unfortunately, the bad guys will always be able to find a soft target, and there will be more terror attacks in the future no matter how much security we pour on.  Once upon a time this nation was greatly blessed with peace and security, but now that hedge of protection is gone.  The federal government could give the Department of Homeland Security trillions of dollars a year and it would not make much of a difference.  We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and bad guys are going to do bad things.

Yes, there are some common sense things that we can do to make our nation more secure.  At this point, the federal government is not doing most of those things.

But no matter how hard we try, bad things are going to happen.  When those bad things happen, what we can control is how we respond to them.

That is why what just happened in Boston is so alarming.  The entire city was put into a complete lockdown for nearly two days.  It was a preview of what could happen nationwide if martial law was declared.  It was an over the top display of force that clearly demonstrated to the rest of the world how incredibly frightened we are.

Some of the things we saw in Boston were absolutely disgraceful.  For example, you can see video of an innocent Watertown family being ripped out of their home at gunpoint right here.

Do you know what this tells the rest of the world?

It tells them that terrorism works.

It tells them that one small incident is enough to send the entire nation into a full-blown panic attack.

You can see some more photos of martial law in Boston right here.  Instead of making things better, this is just going to make the atmosphere of fear in this nation even worse.

And you know what?  None of those heavily armed men even found the second suspect.  He was actually found by a neighbor that had gone out to take a smoke.

Like most Americans, I absolutely hate terrorism in all the forms that it takes.

But we are not going to prevent future terrorism by treating the U.S. Constitution like a piece of trash.  We have now shown the world that we are willing to throw out our most important constitutional rights the moment that a “threat” arises, and this is just going to encourage even more terrorism.

You see, those that engage in terrorism want attention and they want to create fear.  When we give them attention and we allow them to create fear we give them exactly what they want.

Is there anyone out there that can defend what we just saw in Boston?  I can’t imagine any American that still loves the Constitution being proud of what just happened.  I think that Karl Denninger put it quite eloquently the other day…

By effectively occupying a part of the Boston metro area they made an utter mockery of the 4th Amendment. There was no “hot pursuit” and thus no argument available to them allowing searches of private property without consent or a warrant. Not only did they search without a warrant there were multiple reports through the day of seizure of firearms, among other things.

Sadly, most Americans seem to be more than willing to disregard the U.S. Constitution these days.  Most of them are incredibly scared and they just want someone in a position of authority to assure them that they will be safe.

So I am sure that in the months ahead we will see “security” get even tighter in this country.  With each subsequent tragedy, it will just get tighter and tighter until we can barely even breathe.

This is not the answer to any of our problems.  In fact, it is just going to make many of the problems that we are facing as a nation far worse.

Glorious Martial Law?

Activist Post

Are we allowed to talk about martial law, the militarization of police, and the complete shutdown of cities on command? Or will that get the glorious law enforcers to storm and kick in our own doors now? Just what are the rules in effect today? Just what sort of precedent is being set here right before our eyes?

It was your commoner citizens who located the Boston bombing suspect after finding him hiding in a boat. This was after the martial law decree had arbitrarily been lifted, and it was now ordered permissible to go out in one’s backyard again.

Is martial law the answer to sticky incidents with fleeing suspects? Can this now apply to any suspects or any manhunt in the United States, anywhere, for any reason?

One might argue that clearing the streets under military decree is very useful for a particular purpose when pursuing a suspect: allowing a “free fire zone” of automatic .40 caliber hollow point gunfire, the known preference of the new “Homeland Security” apparatus. So what precedents are we setting now, in terms of rewriting the entire law enforcement paradigm, arguably a much more serious concern than a single 19-year-old bleeding suspect. Yeah. What the fuck actually happened last week in Boston?

Governor Deval Patrick took an unprecedented security step, asking people in Boston, Watertown, and several other nearby communities — totaling a million people — to “shelter in place” — stay at home behind locked doors and open up only to police officers with proper identification.” – Boston Globe

“Asking?” Martial law is just a friendly request, and the Globe dutifully disseminates. CBS News counts “thousands of heavily armed law enforcement officers and scores of military-style tactical vehicles,” but is quick to have an expert standing by to justify it as “perfect sense.” Just perfect. All that for one bleeding, injured 19-year-old.

One wonders how many tank divisions and predator squadrons might have been called in if this was one of the much-fabled “cells” we hear so much about on TV. I’m not disputing the need to capture the suspect, an obviously dangerous person, given what he is accused of doing. I am disputing the federal intervention, the military suspension of the Constitution and the militarization of local policing – all greatly warned about numerous times as we descend into outright authoritarianism, clamoring for the federal troops and toys to come and save us. Not only were the public politely “asked” to stay within their homes, authorities also pushed the “media back further and further from the action unfolding (CBS).” This bodes well for a free and open society.

In the midst of all this bombing hysteria the House of Representatives (sic) passed CISPA, with more government/private sector spying. Less accountability for the mishandling of your private data, and more total information awareness totalitarianism is ensured. That is the direction that every single one of these bills travels, bar none. Nearly every act of Congress concerning security of any sort increases government and corporate surveillance powers, diminishes accountability, oversight and the public’s right to challenge their own surveillance by authorities both public and private. We are living more and more in The Matrix, with 4th Amendment protections now considered “quaint” and of a bygone era that no longer has any relevance today.

Praise for surveillance cameras has been noted since Boston with calls for more public surveillance, more facial recognition, more integration of things like traffic cameras and license plate readers.

I think CCTV cameras are much more needed in urban areas. – Rep. Peter King (R), New York, House Committee on Homeland Security

Of course he does. He thought that before this latest photo-op. The answer is always more security, more surveillance, more intrusion, and less individual protection from government and from the private corporate sector.

A tremendous catharsis overwhelmed Boston with the announced capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as if that explained and ended everything. When you enact martial law with thousands of machine gun wielding stormtroopers and armored personnel carriers in the streets, and then make them go away, the people will be grateful. No doubt.

But this is where the story should be entering a new phase of discovery, intense investigation and disclosure. Sorry Boston; this is far from the end.

It was the FBI, apparently, who had monitored the two Chechen brothers for years, according to their own mother. Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva claims the FBI had contacted her and her sons repeatedly over the past 5 years. She even claims that the two were “controlled” by the Feds and “set up” in some kind of sting operation. If that sounds baseless, well we have already had an admission by FBI that they “interviewed” the older brother Tamerlan back in 2011. Further, the Wall Street Journal reports that this FBI interview was in response to a “request by the Russian government.”

Scratch the vinyl. Say what?

Russian intelligence / counter-terrorism is already reported to have asked FBI to check out the older brother, now deceased, whom the FBI says blew up bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon. The FBI admits to talking to this suspect. They then claim, absurdly to have “closed the file” because they allegedly found nothing “suspicious.”

Do these suspected terrorist files even get closed at all? We’re straining credulity here.

Magnitudes more disturbing than any of that is the actual on-the-record activity by the FBI in at least 17 “terrorism” cases with so-called “foiled plots” since the 9/11 attacks. What the FBI does routinely – and this is not in dispute – is to orchestrate terror bombings with targeted individuals. These bombings are suggested and assisted by an undercover FBI provocateur. Often fake explosives and arms are provided. The targeted individuals are strictly monitored, and then set up and arrested with spectacular headlines and a grateful public that was saved from yet another act of senseless terror. The plots are provoked by the government itself in a controversial practice that many call “entrapment.”

Was the Boston Marathon bombing such a case of a sting that was somehow allowed to succeed?

What is the evidence?

Little is known about the operational planning, other than a vague claim by the boys’ mother alleging “control” and “set up.” However, some highly suspicious evidence has emerged from the bombing incident itself. Two main things remain unexplained, and corporate media has not, to my knowledge, investigated the most disturbing evidence the public has seen so far. This corporate media blackout is indicative of unreported, behind the scenes answers likely given by authorities when nosy reporters inquire about these matters.

First: We have the cross-country coach from the University of Mobile, AL saying that authorities announced “training exercises” by the bomb squad at the start of the race. Bomb sniffing dogs were present and used, according to Alastair (“Ali”) Stevenson, who ran the race. Repeated public address announcements told the runners and spectators to “…not worry, this is just a training exercise.”

A lengthy list of justifiable questions springs to mind, which any reporter worth his lunch would immediately want to ask. Yet, none of these questions, and none of the responses to them were published last week. But how could that be?

Let’s start with the absurdity of running a “training exercise” with the bomb squad in the middle of a sprawling, 26-mile-long, city-wide event that draws 500,000 spectators and more than 22,000 runners. It’s not really a time for an “exercise,” but a time to actually protect the public, no? Am I out of line here? I’m sure someone will inform me if I am.

Is this phrase “training exercise” a public relations lie to calm the sheeple, when in fact it is not an “exercise” at all, but a live security detail searching for possible explosives?

Other obvious questions concern who participated in this exercise? Which agencies and which private entities? What were the specifics of the exercise? Did this alleged exercise open up security holes by giving away critical information about security procedures to numerous parties beyond the control of law enforcement? Were explosives, real or fake, involved? Why is information regarding this exercise covered up?

The little matter of who was involved brings up big main question number two.

Second: Photographic images from the finish line / bombing of the Boston Marathon show a collection of suspicious characters acting in some semi-official capacity. What little can be discerned from the photos suggests they may be military mercenary contractors, possibly from a company called Craft International.

These men wore large black backpacks, very similar to the exploded backpack seen in photos immediately after the bombing. They also stand in positions very near the location of one of the bombs. They communicate with one another. One seems to hold a device in hand, perhaps a radiation detector. Others, who are dressed identically, rush over to a FBI bomb squad truck, which arrives minutes after the detonations. They talk with FBI personnel.

This all suggests that these men were coordinating with the FBI bomb squad all along. Is this the “exercise?” It also suggests that the FBI’s bomb squad (a federal entity) was already present before the bombings even happened. Why is a federal bomb squad unit at a marathon race even before bombings occur?

I’ll unload just one more question, concerning these mysterious, unnamed operatives. How can private military mercenaries be involved in any way, shape or form with domestic security on US streets, and notably at an event that turned out to be highly insecure, in the extreme?

Perhaps our society has reached that tipping point into utter insanity and breakdown.

The two brothers Tsarnaev have been established by the FBI as the only perpetrators, the onlysuspects, the only reason for the Boston bombings to have occurred. An FBI press conference went so far as to caution the entire media and public against looking elsewhere:

For clarity these images should be the only ones, I emphasize the only ones, that the public should view to assist us. Other photos should not be deemed credible and they unnecessarily divert the public’s attention in the wrong direction and create undo work for vital law enforcement resources. – Special Agent Rick DesLauriers, the head of the FBI’s Boston office

I find it hard to interpret this diktat as anything other than a direct order to narrow one’s thinking and evidentiary standards. The entire nation has been cautioned that all other evidence is to be deemed by the civilized world as not “credible.” As George W. Bush said a decade prior, at the United Nations: “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories…”

One might expect such direct state orders inside Soviet Russia, but in our allegedly free society with its proudly proclaimed “free press” this is disturbing. The FBI has just discredited the entire concept of investigative journalism and assumed the role of sole authority on all information related to this case. The media is cautioned not to entertain any additional facts, no matter how they may appear to bear on the case. Nothing that doesn’t come directly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation is to be considered “credible” by anyone. Period.

So, is this the end of the so-called “free society?” Land of the free, home of the brave? Or is our new paradigm the land of the surveilled and controlled, home of the cowering, with martial law and propaganda for all?

And with so many thousands upon thousands of law enforcers available at the touch of a button, how about sending, say, one of them to investigate at least 14 counts of manslaughter and massive criminal negligence at that Texas fertilizer plant explosion? Or is that not in the script?

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lies in critical condition since Friday evening, but as of Sunday morning:

“Boston Mayor: Bombing Suspects Acted Alone” – Reliable Stenography by Time Magazine & Associated Press

How the hell would he know?

Several hours later:

Bombing suspect throat injury prevents questioning Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for now – Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in a hospital, sedated and unable to be interrogated because of a throat injury. Authorities want to know if anyone else was involved. – Christian Science Monitor

Welcome, my son. Welcome to the machine. – Pink Floyd

Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal. He also edits The Political Film Blog, which welcomes submissions. polfilmblog at gmail.