Survivalists Plan Giant Fortress in Idaho

Yet another group is making plans for its own private Idaho. A survivalist group aims to build a huge walled fortress called "the Citadel" to house thousands of people in a remote area of northern Idaho, and the AP takes a closer look at the planned community. The compound will include houses, a school, and a gun factory, according to the group's website, which states that "Marxists, Socialists, Liberals, and Establishment Republicans will likely find that life in our community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles."

"There is no leader," project promoter Christian Kerodin says. "There is a significant group of equals involved ... each bringing their own professional skills and life experiences to the group." Among the "life experiences" Kerodin brings is having served 30 months in federal prison on extortion charges, the AP notes. The remote area the Citadel is planned for has housed the compounds of other fringe groups, including the Aryan Nations, but experts suspect this latest project will not go beyond the planning stages. "The people behind the Citadel are like 12-year-old boys talking about the tree house, or the secret underground city, they're going to build some day," says a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Jon Stewart spent quite a bit of time on the subject recently. (More Idaho Citadel stories.)