Is Your Colleague Working With the Feds?

The Progressive recently reported on a public-private organization with 23,000 members in business. InfraGard members include top managers in 350 of the nation's Fortune 500 who are given a direct pipeline with Homeland Security and the FBI, presumably to report suspicious activity or disgruntled employees. Does that mean someone in your corporation has put you in a black book somewhere deep in FBI vaults? Probably not.

InfraGuard, according to the report, has 86 chapters around the country, where the FBI and Homeland Security conduct private meetings with business leaders. The program had 1,700 members immediately after 9/11 but has since spiked to over 23,000 today.

In a 2005 address to InfraGuard members, FBI Director Robert Mueller encouraged business leaders to contact the FBI if they "note suspicious activity or an unusual event," indicating further that members can even notify the FBI about "disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers."

Members praise its effectiveness and value, but the ACLU sees the program as a major concern. "The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment," said Jay Stanley of the ACLU technology and liberty program. "There's no 'business class' in law enforcement."

On the other hand, InfraGard members responding to the article think it's all wild conjecture. One respondant quipped: "It's basically an info clearing house, and the focus is easily 80% good old fashioned cybercrime, hacking, identity theft and other sorts of scams. The real value is that many companies don't traditionally share much info with each other on these topics... No secret oaths, no arcane rituals with sexual overtones (darn it), no decoder ring."

Big Brother image by timparkinson [cc, 2.0]