The FBI responds.

• Position: Editor's Note - Editorial

Well, at least we got the FBI's attention. In our cover story for the March issue, "The FBI Deputizes Business," I exposed the work of InfraGard, this group of more than 23,000 people in the private sector who work with the FBI. I revealed how the group gets almost daily threat information from the FBI, sometimes before the public ever does. And how these businesspeople can act as sort of a corporate TIPS program for the FBI.

But what caught the eye of the FBI was the account of a whistleblower, himself a member of InfraGard, who told me that InfraGard members had been given permission by the FBI and Homeland Security to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law.

On February 15, the FBI issued a press release denouncing our article.

"The article's claims are patently false," said the FBI's Cyber Division Assistant Director Shawn Henry. "InfraGard members have no extraordinary powers and have no greater right to 'shoot to kill' than other civilians."

"No greater right"? That's odd language, isn't it?

It reminded me of a quote from my article from Curt Haugen, CEO of S'Curo Group, and a proud InfraGard member. When I asked him about whether the FBI or Homeland Security agents had told InfraGard members they could use lethal force in an emergency, he said: "That much I cannot comment on. But as a private citizen, you have the right to use force if you feel threatened."

Note that the FBI did not deny that it ever told InfraGard members that they could "shoot to kill." All that Henry said was that InfraGard members "have no greater right." That doesn't exactly blow a hole in my story.

The FBI seemed put out that I did not give enough information about the meeting the whistleblower attended. "Unfortunately, the author of the Progressive article refused even to identify when or where the claimed 'small meeting' occurred in which issues of martial law were...