Think detention camps.  What comes to mind?  Germany?  What about the term “political dissident”?  Probably conjures up images of Soviet Russia.

The problem is you should be thinking about the US, because a new article says all that information they’re collecting really is going somewhere, and that somewhere is called Main Core.

“…there is actually a list that contains the names of at least 8 million Americans known as Main Core that the U.S. intelligence community has been compiling since the 1980s.”

So what exactly is in this list?  What is it for? Salon.com reported:

Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as “an emergency internal security database system” designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law.

Then there was Christopher Ketchum:

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.”

Let’s put it all together.

In effect, the program is a mass catalog of the private lives of Americans.

This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.

The worst part is, some of those links are from five years ago. It can only be far worse now.

So now let’s talk about those who claim this is all really just a pointless fight.  Here are some of the more common things I hear:

• “Well, I’m probably already on the list so I don’t see what the point is of trying to do something.”
• “If they really want my boring info, they can have it.”
• “I have nothing to worry about because I’m not doing anything illegal.”
• “Just because they have the info doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything with it.”
• “There’s nothing we can do.”
• “Well, I guess we need to just vote these people out.”

Here’s a news flash: Every last one of those statements is ridiculous and dangerous.  The point is not whether someone shows up at your door.  The point is that it’s already out of control.  It’s been out of control.  We are not stopping it from happening.  In fact, I’m going to say something pretty blunt that may even offend you.  If you’ve said any of the above statements, then you have been part of the problem.  You are part of the reason we are where we are.  But hey…go back to your Facebook and your wide open Google search histories and your lackadaisical attitude about privacy.   Our government would never do anything bad to law-abiding people, right?