The truth about FEMA camps

Around the United States and extending across many parts of the World outside the US there is a network of former military bases that are still classified, and are still guarded by contractors known to work on Government projects. Recently there have been reports of increased activity around a number of these bases, and official and unofficial increases in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA). FEMA has an interesting position in the US, being a civilian authority backed by military resources provided under legislative directives signed under the Bush administration, some of which are also classified. Since the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987 it has been understood that there are a range of contingency plans of which FEMA are an integral part, to ensure the continuity of the Federal Government in the event of a major disruption to American life. The specific aspect that came to light during those hearings was REX84 after the 1984 readiness exercise carried out by the US military and government bodies, but it was also established that this was only a small part of a much large set of contingency plans.

A large proportion of the work carried out by FEMA research groups working with other security agencies has been in establishing internal and external threats to the US, from terrorist and military threats, to economic and political groups and even religious groups. Since the Hoover era the FBI and CIA have been monitoring individuals and groups both internally and externally that posed potential risks. Hoover famously kept files on a tremendous number of individuals and engaged in blackmail based on those files, but that was just the start. Evidence exists of plans to carry out large scale incarcerations of American citizens, on a scale that is hard to imagine but as an example, a plan from the 1960's gave a credible account of how easy it would be to incarcerate 21 Million African Americans in the event of racial unrest. The plans have been developed far beyond that level more recently. There is, of course, precedent for this from the Second World War when Japanese and German American immigrants were arrested and placed in internment camps on military bases, but the scale and intensity of recent operations suggest that this is becoming more of a consideration. This is backed up by the interesting failure of one of President Obamas pre election promises, the closure and investigation of Guantanamo bay. The fact that this promise has been broken suggests that FEMA and the intelligence community has more power than you might think.

So, why might this be the case? The answer almost certainly lies in part in the location and structure of these camps. Many are on remote former military bases, both within the US and globally, and what these sites tend to have in common is that they are very difficult to get to unless you are specifically going to them. They are not en-route between locations, so access to them can be very closely monitored. The remoteness also allows for the possibility of limiting the ability of people outside the military to monitor activity. It is interesting to draw parallels with some of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, and the use of remote Siberian prison camps by the former Soviet Union for political prisoners. Remoteness allows all sorts of activities that may be unacceptable for those not taken, although when these camps are used this may not be the highest priority any more. It will be interesting to see where this goes, and to gain an insight into the watch lists, started by Hoover but expanded way beyond anything he could have imagined. We now know that over 100,000 people were tracked and monitored in the 1950's as being a threat to the US. Today that number is thought to exceed 100 million and rising. Frightening times ahead folks.