Exclusive! The FBI Deputizes Business

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308

By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive
February 7, 2008

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 doesand, 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.

Then the FBI cloned it, says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of 
directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime 
mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.

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.

We are the owners, operators, and experts of our critical 
infrastructure, from the CEO of a large company in agriculture or high 
finance to the guy who turns the valve at the water utility, says 
Schneck, who by day is the vice president of research integration at 
Secure Computing.

At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation and the private sector, the InfraGard website 
states. InfraGard chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field 
Office territories.

In November 2001, InfraGard had around 1,700 members. As of late 
January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, 
www.infragard.net, which adds that 350 of our nations Fortune 500 have a 
representative in InfraGard.

To join, each person must be sponsored by an existing InfraGard member, 
chapter, or partner organization. The FBI then vets the applicant. On 
the application form, prospective members are asked which aspect of the 
critical infrastructure their organization deals with. These include: 
agriculture, banking and finance, the chemical industry, defense, 
energy, food, information and telecommunications, law enforcement, 
public health, and transportation.

[...]


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