Get Ready For Camp!

Why does the government really want our phone records? Let’s get conspiracy-theoretic all over this!

Here’s a clue. All the fury surrounding NSA’s data mining last week pushed another important story off the front pages. Kellogg Brown and Root, notorious subsidiary of Halliburton, was awarded a $385 million no-bid contingency contract to build a “network” of detention centers, here at home, in the future, for “some kind of mass migrations” or “the rapid development of new programs.” Each center would house up to 5000 detainees.

Allow me to restate that. KBR got handed $385 million in advance, without public debate, for the creation of a lots of new prison camps for people within the US, to all be built in a hurry, and we aren’t being told clearly why, or why KBR has to do it instead of the lowest bidder.

My main question, though, is how do you quickly create a “network” of prisons, each holding up to 5000, for a measly $385 million, assuming “network” means more than, like, 3 or 4?

Answer: You don’t create the prisons from scratch; you establish them where there are already sufficient facilities.

Wait, there’s a shortage of housing, right? Yes, in the civilian sector, but there is and long has been a glut of unused military housing in this country. What with the switch to an all-volunteer army and two overseas wars, there’s no shortage of barracks in the US. In fact the DoD has more bases than it needs.

OK, don’t believe that. Believe this: a big long unclassified document on the US Army’s official website that has been around for over a year, gathering almost no attention, details plans for something entitled the Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This CILP calls for the creation, FROM EXISTING UNUSED FACILITIES ON MILITARY BASES, of prison camps to exploit the labor of certain classes of federal prisoners. The plan specifically rules out paying the prisoners for the labor, so in human language, we’re talking SLAVE LABOR CAMPS. As they put it at Auschwitz, Arbeit macht frei – nicht!

How much do you think it might cost to set those camps up? I’d guess around $385 million or so.

According to the web document, some classes of federal prisoners would be “ineligible” for slavery within the Civilian Labor Program. For instance, sex offenders and drug dealers will not be so fortunate. Who remaining would be eligible?

How about people who wind up in federal custody because of disturbances arising from some kinds of mass migrations or the occasional rapidly developing program?

Gee, what with most of the National Guard off making Iraq free for oil exploitation, if we had even a risk of mass disturbances inside the US, we might have to declare martial law and round up and arrest all the potential troublemakers before the disturbances happen. What if there were a bird flu epidemic, making mass ineffectual quarantines look desirable? What if we tried to send the Mexicans home, and they wouldn’t go? What if a Democrat had a clear shot at the White House, for a change?

But how can we round up potential troublemakers if we don’t know who they are?

Well, thanks to the NSA, now we can know. We can start with our previously obtained list of known troublemakers, like the Raging Grannies, members of the ACLU, Real Change staff, non-Saudi-royal Muslims, Democratic Party precinct leaders, Simon Cowell, and such. Combine that with the NSA’s call data. Do a little easy network computation, and we can rate every resident of the country on a scale of zero to 10. Zero would mean you’re Bush, Cheney, or Rove or close family. Anything over 7.5, say, could mean the Bush administration wouldn’t miss you.

If you’re the average Real Change reader, you’ll probably be assigned an 8 or higher. Since you all won’t be able to vote from your slave labor camps you might as well hale Jeb as your next Überbush right now and get it over with.