Preparing for Civil Unrest in America

Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on US Military Bases

Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Economic and Social Crisis

The financial meltdown has unleashed a latent and emergent social crisis across the United States.

What is at stake is the fraudulent confiscation of lifelong savings and pension funds, the appropriation of tax revenues to finance the trillion dollar “bank bailouts”, which ultimately serve to line the pockets of the richest people in America.

This economic crisis is in large part the result of financial manipulation and outright fraud to the detriment of entire populations, to a renewed wave of corporate bankruptcies, mass unemployment and poverty.

The criminalization of the global financial system, characterized by a “Shadow Banking” network has resulted in the centralization of bank power and an unprecedented concentration of private wealth.

Obama’s “economic stimulus” package and budget proposals contribute to a further process of concentration and centralization of bank power, the cumulative effects of which will eventually resul in large scale corporate, bankruptcies, a new wave of foreclosures not to mention fiscal collapse and the downfall of State social programs. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America’s Fiscal Collapse, Global Research, March 2, 2009).

The cumulative decline of real economic activity backlashes on employment and wages, which in turn leads to a collapse in purchaisng power. The proposed “solution” under the Obama administration contributes to exacerbating rather than alleviating social inequalities and the process of wealth concentration.

The Protest Movement

When people across America, whose lives have been shattered and destroyed, come to realize the true face of the global “free market” system, the legitimacy of the Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the US administration will be challenged.

A latent protest movement directed against the seat of economic and political power is unfolding.

How this process will occur is hard to predict. All sectors of American society are potentially affected: wage earners, small, medium and even large businesses, farmers, professionals, federal, State and municipal employees, students, teachers, health workers, and unemployed. Protests will initially emerge from these various sectors. There is, however, at this stage, no organized national resistance movement directed against the administration’s economic and financial agenda.

Obama’s populist rhetoric conceals the true nature of macro-economic policy. Acting on behalf of Wall Street, the administration’s economic package, which includes close to a trillion dollar “aid” package for the financial services industry, coupled with massive austerity measures, contributes to precipitating America into a bottomless crisis.

“Orwellian Solution” to the Great Depression: Curbing Civil Unrest

At this particular juncture, there is no economic recovery program in sight. The Washington-Wall Street consensus prevails. There are no policies, no alternatives formulated from within the political and economic system. .

What is the way out? How will the US government face an impending social catastrophe?

The solution is to curb social unrest. The chosen avenue, inherited from the outgoing Bush administration is the reinforcement of the Homeland Security apparatus and the militarization of civilian State institutions.

The outgoing administration has laid the groundwork. Various pieces of “anti-terrorist” legislation (including the Patriot Acts) and presidential directives have been put in place since 2001, largely using the pretext of the “Global War on Terrorism.”

Homeland Security’s Internment Camps

Directly related to the issue of curbing social unrest, cohesive system of detention camps is also envisaged, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.

A bill entitled the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (HR 645) was introduced in the US Congress in January. It calls for the establishment of six national emergency centers in major regions in the US to be located on existing military installations. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645

The stated purpose of the “national emergency centers” is to provide “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster.” In actuality, what we are dealing with are FEMA internment camps. HR 645 states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

There has been virtually no press coverage of HR 645.

These “civilian facilities” on US military bases are to be established in cooperation with the US Military. Modeled on Guantanamo, what we are dealing with is the militarization of FEMA internment facilities.

Once a person is arrested and interned in a FEMA camp located on a military base, that person would in all likelihood, under a national emergency, fall under the de facto jurisdiction of the Military: civilian justice and law enforcement including habeas corpus would no longer apply.

HR 645 bears a direct relationship to the economic crisis and the likelihood of mass protests across America. It constitutes a further move to militarize civilian law enforcement, repealing the Posse Comitatus Act.

In the words of Rep. Ron Paul:

“…the fusion centers, militarized police, surveillance cameras and a domestic military command is not enough… Even though we know that detention facilities are already in place, they now want to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency. With the phony debt-based economy getting worse and worse by the day, the possibility of civil unrest is becoming a greater threat to the establishment. One need only look at Iceland, Greece and other nations for what might happen in the United States next.” (Daily Paul, September 2008, emphasis added)

The proposed internment camps should be seen in relation to the broader process of militarization of civilian institutions. The construction of internment camps predates the introduction of HR 645 (Establishment of Emergency Centers) in January 2009. There are, according to various (unconfirmed) reports, some 800 FEMA prison camps in different regions of the U.S. Moreover, since the 1980s, the US military has developed “tactics, techniques and procedures” to suppress civilian dissent, to be used in the eventuality of mass protests (United States Army Field Manual 19-15 under Operation Garden Plot, entitled “Civil Disturbances” was issued in 1985)

In early 2006, tax revenues were allocated to building modern internment camp facilities. In January 2006, Kellogg Brown and Roots, which at the time was a subsidiary of Halliburton, received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):

“The contract, which is effective immediately [January 2006], provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs…

The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. (KBR, 24 January 2006, emphasis added)

The stated objectives of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are to:

“protect national security and uphold public safety by targeting criminal networks and terrorist organizations that seek to exploit vulnerabilities in our immigration system, in our financial networks, along our border, at federal facilities and elsewhere in order to do harm to the United States. The end result is a safer, more secure America” (ICE homepage)

The US media is mum on the issue of the internment camps on US soil. While casually acknowledging the multimillion dollar contract granted to Halliburton’s subsidiary, the news reports largely focused their attention on possible “cost overruns” (similar to those which occurred with KBR in Iraq).

What is the political intent and purpose of these camps? The potential use of these internment facilities to detain American citizens under a martial law situation are not an object of media debate or discussion.

Combat Units Assigned to the Homeland

In the last months of the Bush administration, prior to the November 2008 presidential elections, the Department of Defense ordered the recall of the 3rd Infantry’s 1st Brigade Combat Team from Iraq. The relocation of a combat unit from the war theater to domestic front is an integral part of the Homeland Security agenda. The BCT was assigned to assist in law enforcement activities within the US.

The BCT combat unit was attached to US Army North, the Army’s component of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). The 1st BCT and other combat units would be called upon to perform specific military functions in the case of civil unrest:

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.(

(See Gina Cavallaro, Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1, Army Times, September 8, 2008).

Under the proposed withdrawal of US forces from Iraq under the Obama administration, one expects that other combat units will be brought home from the war theater and reassigned in the United States.

The evolving national security scenario is characterized by a mesh of civilian and military institutions:

-Army combat units working with civilian law enforcement, with the stated mission to curb “social unrest”.

- the establishment of new internment camps under civilian jurisdiction located on US military facilities.

The FEMA internment camps are part of the Continuity of Government (COG), which would be put in place in the case of martial law.

The internment camps are intended to “protect the government” against its citizens, by locking up protesters as well as political activists who might challenge the legitimacy of the Administration’s national security, economic or military agenda.

Spying on Americans: The Big Brother Data Bank

Related to the issue of internment and mass protests, how will data on American citizens be collected?

How will individuals across America be categorized?

What are the criteria of the Department of Homeland Security?

In a 2004 report of the Homeland Security Council entitled Planning Scenarios, pertaining to the defense of the Homeland, the following categories of potential “conspirators” were identified:

”foreign [Islamic] terrorists” ,

“domestic radical groups”, [antiwar and civil rights groups]

“state sponsored adversaries” ["rogue states", "unstable nations"]

“disgruntled employees” [labor and union activists].

In June of last year, the Bush administration issued a National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD 59- HSPD 24) entitled Biometrics for Identification and Screening to Enhance National Security (For Further details see Michel Chossudovsky, “Big Brother” Presidential Directive: “Biometrics for Identification and Screening to Enhance National Security”, Global Research, June 2008)

Adopted without public debate or Congressional approval, its relevant procedures are far-reaching. They are related to the issue of civil unrest. They are also part of the logic behind the establishment of FEMA internment camps under HR 645. .

NSPD 59 (Biometrics for Identification and Screening to Enhance National Security) goes far beyond the narrow issue of biometric identification, it recommends the collection and storage of “associated biographic” information, meaning information on the private lives of US citizens, in minute detail, all of which will be “accomplished within the law”:

“The contextual data that accompanies biometric data includes information on date and place of birth, citizenship, current address and address history, current employment and employment history, current phone numbers and phone number history, use of government services and tax filings. Other contextual data may include bank account and credit card histories, plus criminal database records on a local, state and federal level. The database also could include legal judgments or other public records documenting involvement in legal disputes, child custody records and marriage or divorce records.”(See Jerome Corsi, June 2008)

The directive uses 9/11 and the “Global War on Terrorism” as an all encompassing justification to wage a witch hunt against dissenting citizens, establishing at the same time an atmosphere of fear and intimidation across the land.

It also calls for the integration of various data banks as well as inter-agency cooperation in the sharing of information, with a view to eventually centralizing the information on American citizens.

In a carefully worded text, NSPD 59 “establishes a framework” to enable the Federal government and its various police and intelligence agencies to:

“use mutually compatible methods and procedures in the collection, storage, use, analysis, and sharing of biometric and associated biographic and contextual information of individuals in a lawful and appropriate manner, while respecting their information privacy and other legal rights under United States law.”

The NSPD 59 Directive recommends: “actions and associated timelines for enhancing the existing terrorist-oriented identification and screening processes by expanding the use of biometrics”.

The procedures under NSPD 59 are consistent with an earlier June 2005 decision which consisted increating a “domestic spy service”, under the auspices of the FBI. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Bush Administration creates “Secret State Police”, June 30, 2005)

Working hand in glove with Homeland Security (DHS), the proposed “domestic intelligence department” would combine FBI counterterrorism, intelligence and espionage operations into a single service.

The new department operating under the auspices of the FBI would have the authority to “seize the property of people deemed to be helping the spread of WMD”: They would be able to “spy on people in America suspected of terrorism or having critical intelligence information, even if they are not suspected of committing a crime.” (NBC Tonight, 29 June 2005).

Interesting article Warmachine

I know alot of people aren't "fond" of the longer posts, but when I think the info is worth the read, I feel compelled to post it anyways, glad you read it, hope you got something out of it!

I know this thread was done before by someone else. but which bases are they going to use?

I still think it's hard to say, I don't expect it's something that is going to be released anytime soon.

i was asking because the last person posted a list (not sure from wher) and i know for a fact that 3 of the sites are not under construction....many things he said weren't credible at all so i am skeptical about this.

i think you posted something about the police being in on it? i sent that to a friend who is an arlington detective....he passed it around in this city and ft worth and dallas and they have never heard of anything close to it

Well, starting with the camps thing, stating exactly which ones are to be used, stating that you know for a fact it's this one or that one, I think it's speculation, I don't think we'll know for sure until people start getting sent to them. Although I've heard there's one in Taylor, TX and the video of the site is being used to house illegals. What made me sick was that you can see playground equipment inside the prison facility.

As for the passing around to Law enforcement. Good. I'm glad that people in Law enforcement are getting the info. Now, for this Det. friend of yours not getting any confirmation, well, I would postulate 2 things. First, compartmentalization is one of the main tools of these processes, second, I am only assuming, but I would guess your Det. friend is a good guy, I expect he probably took his oath seriously and if those assumptions are the case, then why would the folks running this crap tell a good Cop thats what's going on?

Also, Historically speaking, you have to realize that when Tyranny comes to your door, it's always been in a uniform.

You know, I was a victim of some brainwashing myself and I'll tell you how. For the longest time, I would come unglued everytime I saw Police brutality, but thats part of the plan. Those running this operation against America want the Law Enforcement to have their own tribal mentality against us and vice versa, which is why you see case after case of Police brutality and corruption, but rarely will see good stories about the brave men and women of the police forces in this country. I now do my best to ignore the media pushing cop abuse, because it's about seperating our Civil servants from the Civilians. It's about making the cops feel like they're hated and that all citizens are potentially dangerous enemies. Thats part of what the MAIC training trash is all about.

What I'm worried about is, they're getting federal training, federal money... who will they listen to if the feces hits the oscillator?

sorry..i should have said my friend thought it was silly and nothing to it. i even showed it to my step dad (retired ft worth cop) he said the same and he keeps up with all of that still. i used to ride with the law dogs and iron pigs....i'm sure they would say the same.

i'm not trying to be insulting to you at all....so please don't ake it that way....but if they say this is wrong...then i trust them. they are all very straight forward and tell it like it is.

i don't know about the site you are talking about....but 3 sites mentioned before where...sheppard AF base, carswell AF base and a water plant near carrollton tx.

i know for a fact that they aren't there

See, I have issue with the statement, the blanket statement that "it's silly" and there's nothing to it.

Why would Government pass legislation to build these camps and then not build them? Why would they create the program for "Clergy response teams" and not utilize them?
Why would Bush have signed agreements with Mexico/Canada that make their troops interchangeable with our own in the event of national emergency or martial law, which Obama has not rescinded, and then not have reasons to use it?

Taylor, TX. This video is of independant media, which was going out to cover a protest, this is what they captured.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxYxTly-yo8

It's not necessarily condemning of a "fema camp", but it just shows you that I wasn't fibbing about the facility with the playground equipment.


PDD 51, which has also not been shelved states:

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

In other words, this act would not give Congress any oversight, no rights for business or people to take any legal or civil actions. And it basically tells the American people to go fornicate themselves.

It states that it also places the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security". So I would think unless these folks have read or been privy to the plans for this, then I can see why they might think it's poppycock.

Now combine PDD 51 with the PAT acts, the John Warner defense authorization act, the homegrown terror act and this MAIC crap and you've got yourself a storm brewing.

I go back to my 2 points of Compartmentalization and if your friend is a good cop, then why would they admit such a gross violation of the public trust to him?

no hun....sorry...pain meds not making me think. i meant about the police. that is what they were referring to....not the camps

Well, I would ask him this, if I could: Are you receiving federal money from DHS for equipment and training? Is some of this training coming from DHS itself?
If those are the cases then what exactly is the training pertaining to and if something disturbing happened in the Federal Government, such as a declaration of martial law, does this money and training come with strings that make them beholden to DHS orders?

If it's all just some ridiculous theory, then why are these orders ready to go?

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990

allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995

allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997

allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998

allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999

allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000

allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001

allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002

designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003

allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004

allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005

allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051

specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310

grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049

assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921

allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institutions in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis." FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate the...

National Security Act of 1947

allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities.

1950 Defense Production Act

gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy.

Act of August 29, 1916

authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency.

International Emergency Economic Powers Act

enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.

I'm not saying 100% of all cops will go along, nor am I saying that they're complicit in the planning, but I would say, due to the militarized way they are trained and the materials that they are being given to train with, alot of Officers will simply follow the orders given to their compartment.

all send it to him and ask him

You make sure that I thank him for even bothering to give it a look and that I appreciate the tough work he does!

war...they reason i even listen to them in the first place is because they are there for the right reasons. they still want to protect and make a difference. they see the abuse in other cops all over the country and are disgusted by it.

i will ask about it and get back to you on it.