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Main Core – database of US citizens believed to be threats to national security
- dfc 13y agoIt looks like all four of the citations on wikipedia ultimately lead to: http://web.archive.org/web/20080831101327/http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2008/05/government_surveillance_homeland_security_main_core_01.php http://web.archive.org/web/20080831101327/http://www.radaron...
- samstave 13y agoInfo about "main Core" has been around a lot longer than that article. Main Core theory is the source for such speculation that they are after people and keep a list of who to stop from spreading truth.
- dfc 13y agoI am not saying its a lie, I'm just saying its a weakly referenced article for wikipedia and/or a wikipedia article that makes it to HN. Please add the other links to the wikipedia page.
- samstave 13y agoUnderstood, wasn't saying you were - was just providing additional data point...
- dfc 13y agoRespectfully†, you were not adding another data point, you added another anecdote. † I am not trying to be a dick I really do mean respectfully. At a time like this I think it is important to not get carried away with wild speculation. Privacy has not gotten this much attention in a long time. I think we should strive to make the best use of this opportunity as possible.
- Alex3917 13y agoSeems legit. I'm totally sure that high level whistleblowers from across the government would have chosen a slightly-mentally-unstable freelance literary magazine contributor to reveal the truth about the most secret government program of all time.
- snowwrestler 13y agoThe article says: - that the U.S. government has been developing Main Core and martial law plans since at least the 1980s, and - that they might use a major terrorist attack, involving the death of thousands of people, as an excuse to implement those plans. Of course we already did have such a terrorist attack, and martial law was not declared, and 8 million Americans were not rounded up into FEMA detention camps.
- dfc 13y agoI am not sure what your point is?
- cyphax 13y ago>Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security Millions of US citizens believed to be threats to national security? Paranoid much, US government? I don't see much of a reason tot trust that government; it seems they don't trust you, anyway.
- jlgreco 13y agoJust to put this level of paranoia in some perspective, Stalin's purges hit a massive 1% of the population. 8 million is 2.5%. This is so paranoid that it is hard to comprehend. If you think that 2.5% of the population is out to get you, then you should probably be very carefully considering the possibility that the problem is actually you.
- Ihmahr 13y agoEven more than 2.5% if you exclude children and people over 65.
- dfc 13y agoWhy would you exclude senior citizens? AKA one of the most politically active demographics in the country.
- madaxe 13y agoSeniors don't riot.
- pawelwentpawel 13y agoDuring recent riots in Turkey seniors were supporting younger protesters - bringing food, offering medical help etc.
- cmdkeen 13y agoAnd? Rioting is not the sole source of "threats to national security". Indeed older people often form the intellectual leadership for all sorts of movements/organisations, good and bad. Especially in cultures that have maintained their respect for elders.
- Natsu 13y agoFor a moment, I thought they were talking about the Japanese internment camps from WWII.
- dfc 13y ago...and then you realized it says 8,000,000 not 120,000 people.
- w_t_payne 13y agoAfter the last few days of headlines on HN, I am starting to feel a bit (a lot) like a conspiracy theory wingnut. Am I going mad? Is it just me?
- samstave 13y ago/r/conspiracy Trust me - you'll like it.
- glurgh 13y agoOnly if you apply the loose criteria conspiracy theory wingnuts apply. Like with anything else, you should ask yourself 'what's the evidence? how reliable/well-sourced is this story?'. In this particular case, the answer to the latter is 'very poorly'. A reasonable common-sense question is also - what use is a database with 8 million records in a situation dire enough to necessitate invoking continuity-of-government procedures/martial law/etc. Who exactly is going to go out and check up on 8 million 'potential threats' in case of, say, a nuclear attack?
- w_t_payne 13y ago8 million tiny, poison-tipped drones.
- smky80 13y ago"Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom. Make up your own mind." -- Captain Ratchak, Starship Troopers.
- ironic_ali 13y agoWhat does the raft of evidence, that was once conspiracy theory, coming true tell you/us? No wonder the internet being throttled is top of the agenda - information spreads exponentially until critical mass occurs and those that suppress freedom are removed from power - unfortunately, the powers that be use force and not so good things happen to some. Fear as a control mechanism works well for most people. History and psychology prove power in the hands of the few corrupts. The only difference this time is the technology being used - the goal is the same as it was in every other case, control of dissenters of the imposed status quo.
- salimmadjd 13y agoWhat transpired in Turkey can easily happen in US. There are many dissatisfied people on either side of the political spectrum. Now more than ever, with higher unemployment and extensive communication channels, the risks are even higher. But there are ways to keep the population at check: 1 - Utilize the fear of external entities (Iraq, terrorism, etc.) to channel away anxiety from domestic issues. 2 - pre-occupy the public, reality shows, sports, etc. 3 - Focus the problem on individuals to provide the election as a escape valve (Bush, Obama, etc.) 4 - Quickly stop or discredit any movement before it catches on like wild fire. 5 - Identify potential instigators and defuse them early if needed (shutdown bank account, credit card, ATM) terminate their phones and Internet-which is why you need this list. , etc-which is why you need this list. Edit:fixed formatting
- samstave 13y ago6 - (but really #1) Eliminate financial freedom of the populous. What do you think 2008 was about?
- salimmadjd 13y agoAgreed!
- MichaelMcQuirk 13y agoIs that not just giving them a reason to rebel?
- gordaco 13y agoSomething is very, very wrong with your government agencies when such a sizable percentage of the population can be considered "threats".
- mikecane 13y agoOr something is very wrong with a government that would perceive so many as threats -- or create such "threats."
- chiph 13y agoI don't see this (if it really exists) as being a product of government, per-se, but of bureaucracy. If you come across someone who is vaguely dissatisfied, and a list of malcontents exists, then you're going to shrug your shoulders and add them to the list. Because leaving them off the list would be risky, and no one ever got fired for doing the safe thing.
- codex 13y agoHave you seen the US incarceration rate? Seems consistent with that.
- CleanedStar 13y agoThe Wikipedia article is correct and covers most of it. Technically it is correct the current list is from 1982. But really the list surfaced in 1950. Another Wikipedia article to check out is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarran_Internal_Security_Act#Provisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarran_Internal_Security_Act#... . The provisions of that act are more-or-less the same thing - a reversal of the idea of habeas corpus. It grants the executive branch power to indefinitely detain masses of political dissenters without trial. The provision that allows this was proposed by the champion of US liberalism at the time, Hubert Humphrey. That 1950 list is the 1982 list and is also the current list. Of course the names change as times go by, but the purpose is the same. For the government it is a good idea - it worked pretty well for Germany and Italy - you get rid of troublesome nationalities and political dissenters. It works well and makes a lot of sense for them. Of course I myself don't condone it.
- cmdkeen 13y agoThe bit that seems to me more poorly sourced is the purpose of the list - the idea that it is there for the investigation, detention or as someone has made the leap to Stalin level purges. If you're planning for Continuity of Government you aren't looking to handle detaining whole swathes of your surviving population. However you may want a database to be able to check people coming forwards to be involved in civil society after such an event. Surely there are enough people on here who have watched Jericho and Revolution to understand that civil society is really vulnerable in the aftermath of a catastrophic event.
- seanp2k2 13y agoWelp, I'd bet that the majority of people here on HN who care about stuff like this are on this list.
- university 13y agoHN makes it easy for the NSA to collect names. Recycle your HN profile regularly. Green is the color of privacy.
- w_t_payne 13y agoThere are no reasonable steps that I can take to maintain anonymity. The most I can do is to counter my inbuilt bias to self-censor; to be as outspoken and uncaring-of-the-consequences as possible. Punk is the only and correct response to surveillance. (Hence my previous straw-man reactionary paranoid collaboration).
- mindcrime 13y agoI tend to (mostly) agree with this. I think that actually being as outspoken and public as possible are a better shield against being bothered by the NSA and their kind, than trying to hide in the shadows. After all, the shadowy fringe is where agencies like the NSA live, it's what they specialize in, and what they know. Why give them "home field advantage" by trying to play their game? F%!# that, make them play your game instead. Be public, be loud, be visible and be transparent. They hate that shit.
- xradionut 13y agoThere used to be anonymity, but it's too late to start now. I've met a few people, (outside of the homeless community or the third world), that are truly anonymous in the practical sense of the word. It's not something that 99.99% percent of people would consider or desire.
- tomjen3 13y agoYes, but really I don't care anymore, and heck if we all end up in internment camps at least we will have great company (well not me, as an non-us citizen I will likely go to gitmo). Anyway the reason I can't get rilled up is that I was during the Bush years. In the first few years after 9/11 I was seriously concerned that he would round all the muslims up and intern them (ala the US citizens of Japanese orgion during WWII), but even back then when there might have been sufficient political will to do that it wasn't going to happen, why should it happen now?
- alan_cx 13y agoSo, we have people claiming that FEMA(?) have all these dormant prison camps all over the US waiting to lock millions of Americans up in the even of..... well, who knows? Well, if Main Core is correct, these people have to go somewhere. If the prison camps are only in the imagination of loon conspiracy theorists, where would these 8 million go? Strikes me the US, probably my lot in the UK too, needs a truth and reconciliation commission.
- mikecane 13y agoNot everyone has to "go" somewhere. Prison release programs have people wear ankle bracelets. For some, house arrest will suffice with a GPS shackle. It will likely depend on your Threat Score. For instance, do you have a cache of weapons or is your "threat" mainly about ideas? People who can actively engage in force will likely have a higher score than someone whose "threat" is persuasion. (Although to a regime like China, the Dalai Lama is perhaps a higher threat than someone with a cache of guns. So your "threat mileage" might vary.)
- blots 13y agoOh no, the people with ideas are the more dangerous. People with guns might kill a few people, but people with ideas can influence a lot more people.
- twoodfin 13y agoOr hn needs to get over its sudden decision to become a mashup of /r/politics and /r/conspiracy. Really, this is first rate nutty stuff. Did you know the U.S. government has a database containing records on hundreds of millions of its citizens (and even some non-citizens!)? It contains records of where you live, which causes you support and how much money you make. Some people in this database are flagged for "special attention" by government agents who conduct an even more thorough trawl through personal lives. Of course, that's the IRS. Maybe some of us would prefer a taxation scheme that didn't require all this infrastructure, but there's nothing deeply nefarious about it. It's one thing to be unhappy or disturbed by the alleged degree of NSA data collection on U.S. citizens, but when you start speculating about FEMA prison camps you've gone over the edge.
- euroclydon 13y agoI sometimes fret that a nation formed by a revolution, who's founding document even seems to imply that revolutions are periodically necessary, would so thoroughly protect itself from revolution. This database is a revolution-buzz-kill. Then I get bummed that after the Newtown shooting all the politicians who wanted to enact tighter gun restrictions kept saying that you don't need an assault rifle to hunt. I don't see anything about hunting in the 2nd amendment. I always thought the second amendment was about preventing tyranny, in which case a fully automatic weapon would be very useful. But, the second amendment is probably more about state organized militias in a time when the feds didn't maintain a standing army. I guess I'm going to have to give up this idle revolution fantasy. It would probably suck anyhow -- there's no way more people will be fed than are now, wealth would be distributed more equally, or due process would be better respected, after an armed revolution.
- trust-me 13y agoLet me tell you how useful an automatic weapon is against a swarm of drones: not useful at all. Those drones are very similar to the laptops and tablets we use everyday and can be mass produced in millions on the Pentagon/Occupation/etc. 1+ trillion budgets. PRISM and company will just supply the targets - leaders, current and potential, of an opposition.
- jafaku 13y agoDon't those things need a (remote) pilote? How would drones without pilotes work against a revolution?
- trust-me 13y agoWith the huge R&D investments of DAPRA&Co they need fewer and fewer people to operate. It's not a problem to find a few dozens of loyal people ready to kill kids and whoever else tries to disobey the orders.
- cma 13y agoAssault rifles have basically never been allowed. You are thinking of assault-style weapons, a recently made up term that basically refers to a costume a semi automatic rifle is wearing, along with high-capacity magazines.
- bravoyankee 13y agoKeep in mind that detained may be for a long time, indefinitely in solitary confinement and without charges, in one of the many prisons the US government has been building in recent years: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289 http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-unit...
- blots 13y agoReminds me very much of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge Well, as a possible consequence.
- api 13y agoI'd be incredibly surprised if every government on Earth doesn't have something like this. That being said, that doesn't mean it's good. How "dirty" is that data set, for starters?
- milesf 13y agoHow do I find out if my name is on it?
- hedonist 13y agoWhy it's very simple, my friend: (1) Just file a request with FEMA, DHS, or the FBI. (2) Presto! Doing so will mark you as suspicious, and subject to surveillance, questioning, and/or internment during times of national crisis.
- enraged_camel 13y agoMy understanding is that it works kind of like the No-Fly List: you don't find out if your name is on it until it's too late.
- wavefunction 13y agoCome at me bro