Main Core is the code name of a database maintained since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States. Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security. The data, which comes from the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources, is collected and stored without warrants or court orders.
The database’s name derives from the fact that it contains “copies of the ‘main core’ or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.”
If you are a student of history, however, you will realize this is nonsense. If you know anything about Continuity of Government measures implemented following September 11, 2001 and earlier programs like Rex 84 and Operation Garden Plot , you already have a sneaking suspicion the NSA’s massive surveillance operation has nothing to do with al-Qaeda. It’s about collecting data on American
citizens, specifically the eight or so million compiled in the Main Core database.
