Obama Preparing Martial Law?

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Sat, 06/15/2013 - 02:38

Climate Destabilization Crisis of Capitalism

The Guardian on June 14 makes note changes to a regulation in the US Code titled "Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies" published last month in the Federal Register:

A Federal military commander's authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances...

The Guardian seems to have picked it up from Long Island Press of May 14. It has received virtually no other stateside coverage. The Guardian connects a few dots to provide context for the ominous passage:

In 2006, the US National Security Strategy warned that:

"Environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or cataclysmic mega-disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or tsunamis. Problems of this scope may overwhelm the capacity of local authorities to respond, and may even overtax national militaries, requiring a larger international response."

Two years later, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Army Modernization Strategy described the arrival of a new "era of persistent conflict" due to competition for "depleting natural resources and overseas markets" fueling "future resource wars over water, food and energy." The report predicted a resurgence of:

"… anti-government and radical ideologies that potentially threaten government stability."

In the same year, a report by the US Army's Strategic Studies Institute warned that a series of domestic crises could provoke large-scale civil unrest. The path to "disruptive domestic shock" could include traditional threats such as deployment of WMDs, alongside "catastrophic natural and human disasters" or "pervasive public health emergencies" coinciding with "unforeseen economic collapse." Such crises could lead to "loss of functioning political and legal order" leading to “purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency…

That year, the Pentagon had begun developing a 20,000 strong troop force who would be on-hand to respond to "domestic catastrophes" and civil unrest—the program was reportedly based on a 2005 homeland security strategy which emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents."

The following year, a US Army-funded RAND Corp study called for a US force presence specifically to deal with civil unrest.

Such fears were further solidified in a detailed 2010 study by the US Joint Forces Command—designed to inform "joint concept development and experimentation throughout the Department of Defense"—setting out the US military’s definitive vision for future trends and potential global threats. Climate change, the study said, would lead to increased risk of:

"… tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural catastrophes… Furthermore, if such a catastrophe occurs within the United States itself—particularly when the nation's economy is in a fragile state or where US military bases or key civilian infrastructure are broadly affected—the damage to US security could be considerable."

The study also warned of a possible shortfall in global oil output by 2015:

"A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions."

That year the DoD's Quadrennial Defense Review seconded such concerns, while recognizing that "climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked."

Also in 2010, the Pentagon ran war games to explore the implications of "large scale economic breakdown" in the US impacting on food supplies and other essential services, as well as how to maintain "domestic order amid civil unrest."

Speaking about the group's conclusions at giant US defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton's conference facility in Virginia, Lt Col. Mark Elfendahl—then chief of the Joint and Army Concepts Division—highlighted homeland operations as a way to legitimize the US military budget:

"An increased focus on domestic activities might be a way of justifying whatever Army force structure the country can still afford."

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 I wasn't on the list already, re-publishing this article probably put me on it.}

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…

From: 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

'We're 1 act away from social cataclysm' (EMP)

Grave threat could affect lives of 160 million people

WASHINGTON – While Washington is abuzz this week with investigations into several scandals, a summit on a much graver threat that could affect the lives of some 160 million people is underway on Capitol Hill. The annual International Electric Infrastructure Security Summit beganMonday with panel discussions on the vulnerability of U.S. power grids to potential threats. The summit opened with a chilling video calling into question the U.S.' preparedness to handle the threat of electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, and severe space weather that could cripple the U.S. technological infrastructure to a debilitating degree. "We are only one act of madness away from a social cataclysm unlike anything our country has ever known," said conference moderator Rep. Trent Frank, R-Ariz. Read the documentation that's sparking the worry about the EMP threat, in "A Nation Forsaken." Electric Infrastructure Security Council Founder and CEO Avi Schnurr warned summit attendees, "Governments and corporations are used to dealing with crises by experiencing them and gradually learning how to respond. EMP and severe space weather are in a different category. We are talking about a black swan event, which is not effectively survivable." Throughout the day, panelists drew attention to just how unprepared the U.S. is to handle such a threat. As one speaker explained, water supplies, food, gasoline, transportation, emergency services, medical care and financial services would essentially come to a standstill in the event of an EMP attack or severe space weather catastrophe. Dr. Robert Hermann of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack warned, "EMP is one of a small number of threats that could hold at risk the continued existence of U.S. civil society." As WND reported, scientists have predicted an increased number of solar flares in the near future as the sun approaches its peak activity. The intense solar storms are expected to last as long as until 2020. For the U.S., the increase in space weather activity draws concern, as it is a technologically based society dependent on critical electronic infrastructure, which could be severely damaged in the case of a massive solar flare or EMP. With an EMP generated from the sun's flares – some of which can be up to 10 times the size of the Earth – the unprotected grid, including transformers, electrical components and automated control systems that everyone takes for granted in their everyday lives, could either be severely damaged or fried, taking months if not years to replace. NASA estimates that a direct hit to Earth from one of these enormous flares would have a catastrophic impact on the nation's critical infrastructures over a very wide geographical area. In the first year alone, NASA estimates, such a disaster could cost just the U.S. upward of $2 trillion. It also would take from four to 10 years to recover – if that even would be possible – and affect the lives of some 160 million people, threatening starvation and death. Some EMP experts say that such a catastrophic event could  wipe out America's urban centers, due to their total dependency on critical infrastructures for electricity, communications, food and water delivery, oil and gas, transportation, automated banking and financial institutions and even emergency services. Rep. Yvette Clark, D-N.Y., warned the EIS Summit, "The likelihood of a severe geomagnetic event capable of crippling our electric grid is 100 percent."

Another Example of "The Government Doesn't Like Competition"

Federal Reserve initiates investigation into
PayPal, Bitcoin for security risks

The Federal Reserve is conducting an investigation into online payment systems like PayPal and virtual currencies such as bitcoin because financial institutions are concerned those online participants could disrupt the financial system, according to officials who gathered Monday for the International Monetary Conference in Shanghai.

In March, the Treasury Department concluded that issuers or exchangers of online money, including currencies that are not backed by the federal government, would be subject to money-laundering rules and regulations.

Also, the Department of Homeland Security had confiscated the accounts of Mutum Sigillum LCC, one bitcoin digital currency exchange operator. It claimed the company and a subsidiary had performed transactions “as part of an unlicensed money service business.”

It appears that the establishment is terrified of competing currencies. As more and more people head into precious metals, virtual currencies and other alternative forms of money, the confidence in the U.S. dollar and other currencies is being eroded due to irresponsible monetary policy.

http://economiccollapsenews.com/2013/06/04/federal-reserve-initiates-investigation-into-paypal-bitcoin-for-security-risks/