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Path: uuwest!control.spies.com!spies!sgiblab!sgigate!olivea!stratus!florida!lpb From: lpb@florida.swdc.stratus.com (Len Bucuvalas) Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy Subject: Re: Executive Orders Message-ID: <8523.29441@stratus.SWDC.Stratus.COM> Date: 11 Nov 92 18:58:32 GMT References: <BxGKI1.HDn@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> Sender: news@SWDC.Stratus.COM Lines: 1615

This is in reply to the original poster. What is is what can happen. What is not, has happened, and what may be will happen.

My 2 cents worth of gobbledygook for the day! ;^)

This file describes, FEMA, all EOs, and provides examples of their use.

Len ========================================================================

SUBJECT: FEMA GULAG

SECRET CONCENTRATION CAMPS

The September issue of THE OSTRICH reprinted a story from the CBA BULLETIN which listed the following principal civilian concentra- tion camps established in GULAG USA under the =Rex '84= program: Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas; Ft. Drum, New York; Ft. Indian Gap, Penn- sylvania; Camp A. P. Hill, Virginia; Oakdale, California; Eglin Air Force Base, Florida; Vendenberg AFB, California; Ft. Mc Coy, Wisconsin; Ft. Benning, Georgia; Ft. Huachuca, Arizona; Camp Krome, Florida. The February OSTRICH printed a map of the expanding Gulag. Alhough this listing and map stirred considerable interest, the report was not new. For at least 20 years, knowledgeable Patriots have been warning of these sinister plots to incarcerate dissidents opposing plans of the =Elitist Syndicate= for a totalitarian =New World Order=. Indeed, the plot was recognized with the insidious encroachment of "regionalism" back in the 1960's. As early as 1968, the "greatest land steal in history" leading to global corporate socialism, was in a ="Master Land Plan"= for the United States by =Executive Orders= involving water resource regions, population movement and control, pollution control, zoning and land use, navigation and environmental bills, etc. Indeed, the real undercover aim of the so-called "Environmental Rennaissance" has been the abolition of private property. All prelude to the total grab of the =World Conservation Bank=, as THE OSTRICH has been reporting. The map on this page and the list of executive orders available for imposition of an "emergency" are from 1970s files of the late Gen. =P. A. Del Valle's= ALERT, sent us by =Merritt Newby=, editor of the now defunct AMERICAN CHALLENGE. =Wake up Americans!= The Bushoviks have approved =Gorbachev's= imposition of "Emergency" to suppress unrest. =Henry Kissinger= and his clients hardly missed a day's profits in their deals with the butchers of Tiananmen Sqaure. Are you next? ************************************************************************* SUBJECT: Executive Orders

APPLICABLE EXECUTIVE ORDERS

The following =Executive Orders=, now recorded in the Federal Register, and therefore accepted by Congress as the law of the land, can be put into effect at any time an emergency is declared:

10995--All communications media seized by the Federal Government. 10997--Seizure of all electrical power, fuels, including gasoline and minerals. 10998--Seizure of all food resources, farms and farm equipment. 10999--Seizure of all kinds of transportation, including your personal car, and control of all highways and seaports. 11000--Seizure of all civilians for work under Federal supervision. 11001--Federal takeover of all health, education and welfare. 11002--Postmaster General empowered to register every man, woman and child in the U.S.A. 11003--Seizure of all aircraft and airports by the Federal Government. 11004--Housing and Finance authority may shift population from one locality to another. Complete integration. 11005--Seizure of railroads, inland waterways, and storage facilities. 11051--The Director of the Office of Emergency Planning authorized to put Executive Orders into effect in "times of increased international tension or financial crisis". He is also to perform such additional functions as the President may direct.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Dangerous Fact Not Generally Known ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THESE EXECUTIVE ORDERS GROSSLY AND FLAGRANTLY VIOLATE ARTICLE 4 SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. "THE UNITED STATES SHALL GUARANTEE TO EVERY STATE IN THIS UNION A REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT, AND SHALL PROTECT EACH OF THEM AGAINST INVASION; AND ON APPLICATION OF THE LEGISLATURE, OR OF THE EXECUTIVE (WHEN THE LEGISLATURE CANNOT BE CONVENED) AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE." "REGIONAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT A REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT!"

When Government gets out of hand and can no longer be controlled by the people, short of violent overthrow as in 1776, there are two sources of power which are used by the dictatorial government to keep the people in line: the Police Power and the Power of the Purse (through which the necessities of life can be withheld). And both of these powers are no longer balanced between the three Federal Branches, and between the Federal and the State and local Governments. These powers have been taken over, with the permission of the Federal Legislature and the State Governments, by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and all attempts to reclaim that lost power have been defeated.

Stated simply: the dictatorial power of the Executive rests primarily on three basis: Executive Order 11490, Executive Order 11647, and the Planning, Programming, Budgeting System which is operated through the new and all-powerful Office of Management and Budget.

E. O. 11490 is a compilation of some 23 previous Executive Orders, signed by Nixon on Oct. 28, 1969, and outlining emergency functions which are to be performed by some 28 Executive Departments and Agencies whenever the President of the United States declares a national emergency (as in defiance of an impeachment edict, for example). Under the terms of E. O. 11490, the President can declare that a national emergency exists and the Executive Branch can: * Take over all communications media * Seize all sources of power * Take charge of all food resources * Control all highways and seaports * Seize all railroads, inland waterways, airports, storage facilities * Commandeer all civilians to work under federal supervision * Control all activities relating to health, education, and welfare * Shift any segment of the population from one locality to another * Take over farms, ranches, timberized properties * Regulate the amount of your own money you may withdraw from your bank, or savings and loan institution

All of these and many more items are listed in 32 pages incorporating nearly 200,000 words, providing and absolute bureaucratic dictatorship whenever the President gives the word.

--> Executive Order 11647 provides the regional and local mechanisms --> and manpower for carrying out the provisions of E. O. 11490. --> Signed by Richard Nixon on Feb. 10, 1972, this Order sets up Ten --> Federal Regional Councils to govern Ten Federal Regions made up --> of the fifty still existing States of the Union.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Don sez:

*Check out this book for the inside scoop on the "secret" Constitution.*

SUBJECT: - "The Proposed Constitutional Model" Pages 595-621 Book Title - The Emerging Constitution Author - Rexford G. Tugwell Publisher - Harpers Magazine Press,Harper and Row Dewey Decimal - 342.73 T915E ISBN - 0-06-128225-10 Note Chapter 14 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The 10 Federal Regions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

REGION I: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont. Regional Capitol: Boston REGION II: New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Virgin Island. Regional Capitol: New York City REGION III: Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, District of Columbia. Regional Capitol: Philadelphia REGION IV: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee. Regional Capitol: Atlanta REGION V: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin. Regional Capitol: Chicago REGION VI: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas. Regional Capitol: Dallas-Fort Worth REGION VII: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska. Regional Capitol: Kansas City REGION VIII: Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming. Regional Capitol: Denver REGION IX: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada. Regional Capitol: San Fransisco REGION X: Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho. Regional Capitol: Seattle

Supplementing these Then Regions, each of the States is, or is to be, divided into subregions, so that Federal Executive control is provided over every community.

Then, controlling the bedgeting and the programming at every level is that politico-economic system known as PPBS.

The President need not wait for some emergency such as an impeachment ouster. He can declare a National Emergency at any time, and freeze everything, just as he has already frozen wages and prices. And the Congress, and the States, are powerless to prevent such an Executive Dictatorship, unless Congress moves to revoke these extraordinary powers before the Chief Executive moves to invoke them.

THESE EXECUTIVE ORDERS GROSSLY AND FLAGRANTLY VIOLATE THE INTENT AND PURPOSE OF ARTICLE 4 SECTION 3. THERE IS NO PROVISION IN THIS SECTION OR THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES FOR FORMING A REGIONAL STATE OUT OF A GROUP OF STATES! FURTHER, THESE EXECUTIVE ORDERS GROSSLY AND FLAGRANTLY VIOLATE THE 9TH AND 10TH AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION!

By Proclaiming and Putting Into Effect Executive Order No. 11490, the President would put the United States under TOTAL MARTIAL LAW AND MILITARY DICTATORSHIP! The Guns Of The American People Would Be Forcibly Taken!

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Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Subject: 1988 National Emergencies Act--> Consolidating the Imperial Executive Followup-To: alt.activism.d Lines: 691

>Sender: Activists Mailing List <ACTIV-L@UMCVMB.BITNET> >From: dave 'who can do? ratmandu!' ratcliffe > <dave@ratmandu.corp.sgi.com>

Keywords: "To preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God." Lines: 696

Bushie-Tail used the Gulf War Show to greatly expand the powers of the presidency. During this shell game event, the Executive Orders signed into "law" continued Bushie's methodical and detailed program to bury any residual traces of the constitutional rights and protections of U.S. citizens. The Bill of Rights--[almost too late to] use 'em or lose 'em:

|| The record of Bush's fast and loose approach to || || constitutionally guaranteed civil rights is a history of || || the erosion of liberty and the consolidation of an imperial || || executive. ||

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From "Covert Action Information Bulletin," Number 37, Summer, 1991 (see bottom 2 pages for subscription & back issues info on this quarterly):

Domestic Consequences of the Gulf War Diana Reynolds Reprinted with permission of CAIB. Copyright 1991

Diana Reynolds is a Research Associate at the Edward R. Murrow Center, Fletcher School for Public Policy, Tufts University. She is also an Assistant Professor of Politics at Broadford College and a Lecturer at Merrimack College.

A war, even the most victorious, is a national misfortune. --Helmuth Von Moltke, Prussian field marshall

George Bush put the United States on the road to its second war in two years by declaring a national emergency on August 2,1990. In response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Bush issued two Executive Orders (12722 and 12723) which restricted trade and travel with Iraq and froze Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets within the U.S. and those in the possession of U.S. persons abroad. At least 15 other executive orders followed these initial restrictions and enabled the President to mobilize the country's human and productive resources for war. Under the national emergency, Bush was able unilaterally to break his 1991 budget agreement with Congress which had frozen defense spending, to entrench further the U.S. economy in the mire of the military- industrial complex, to override environmental protection regulations, and to make free enterprise and civil liberties conditional upon an executive determination of national security interests.

The State of Emergency In time of war a president's power derives from both constitutional and statutory sources. Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, he is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Although Congress alone retains the right to declare war, this power has become increasingly meaningless in the face of a succession of unilateral decisions by the executive to mount invasions. The president's statutory authority, granted by Congress and expanded by it under the 1988 National Emergencies Act (50 USC sec. 1601), confers special powers in time of war or national emergency. He can invoke those special powers simply by declaring a national emergency. First, however, he must specify the legal provisions under which he proposes that he, or other officers, will act. Congress may end a national emergency by enacting a joint resolution. Once invoked by the president, emergency powers are directed by the National Security Council and administered, where appropriate, under the general umbrella of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).[1] There is no requirement that Congress be consulted before an emergency is declared or findings signed. The only restriction on Bush is that he must inform Congress in a "timely" fashion--he being the sole arbiter of timeliness. Ultimately, the president's perception of the severity of a particular threat to national security and the integrity of his appointed officers determine the nature of any state of emergency. For this reason, those who were aware of the modern development of presidential emergency powers were apprehensive about the domestic ramifications of any national emergency declared by George Bush. In light of Bush's record (see "Bush Chips Away at Constitution" Box below) and present performance, their fears appear well-founded.

The War at Home It is too early to know all of the emergency powers, executive orders and findings issued under classified National Security Directives[2] implemented by Bush in the name of the Gulf War. In addition to the emergency powers necessary to the direct mobilization of active and reserve armed forces of the United States, there are some 120 additional emergency powers that can be used in a national emergency or state of war (declared or undeclared by Congress). The "Federal Register" records some 15 Executive Orders (EO) signed by Bush from August 2,1990 to February 14,1991. (See "Bush's Executive Orders" box, below) It may take many years before most of the executive findings and use of powers come to light, if indeed they ever do. But evidence is emerging that at least some of Bush's emergency powers were activated in secret. Although only five of the 15 EOs that were published were directed at non-military personnel, the costs directly attributable to the exercise of the authorities conferred by the declaration of national emergency from August 2, 1990 to February 1, 1991 for non- military activities are estimated at approximately $1.3 billion. According to a February 11, 1991 letter from Bush to congressional leaders reporting on the "National Emergency With Respect to Iraq," these costs represent wage and salary costs for the Departments of Treasury, State, Agriculture, and Transportation, U.S. Customs, Federal Reserve Board, and the National Security Council.[3] The fact that $1.3 billion was spent in non-military salaries alone in this six month period suggests an unusual amount of government resources utilized to direct the national emergency state. In contrast, government salaries for one year of the state of emergency with Iran[4] cost only $430,000.

____________________________________________________________________ | | | Bush Chips Away at Constitution | | | | George Bush, perhaps more than any other individual in | | U.S. history, has expanded the emergency powers of | | presidency. In 1976, as Director of Central Intelligence, | | he convened Team B, a group of rabidly anti-communist | | intellectuals and former government officials to reevaluate | | CIA inhouse intelligence estimates on Soviet military | | strength. The resulting report recommended draconian civil | | defense measures which led to President Ford's Executive | | Order 11921 authorizing plans to establish government | | control of the means of production, distribution, energy | | sources, wages and salaries, credit and the flow of money | | in U.S. financial institutions in a national emergency.[1] | | As Vice President, Bush headed the Task Force on | | Combatting Terrorism, that recommended: extended and | | flexible emergency presidential powers to combat terrorism; | | restrictions on congressional oversight in counter- | | terrorist planning; and curbing press coverage of | | terrorist incidents.[2] The report gave rise to the Anti- | | Terrorism Act of 1986, that granted the President clear-cut | | authority to respond to terrorism with all appropriate | | means including deadly force. It authorized the | | Immigration and Naturalization Service to control and | | remove not only alien terrorists but potential terrorist | | aliens and those "who are likely to be supportive of | | terrorist activity within the U.S."[3] The bill superceded | | the War Powers Act by imposing no time limit on the | | President's use of force in a terrorist situation, and | | lifted the requirement that the President consult Congress | | before sanctioning deadly force. | | From 1982 to 1988, Bush led the Defense Mobilization | | Planning Systems Agency (DMPSA), a secret government | | organization, and spent more than $3 billion upgrading | | command, control, and communications in FEMA's continuity | | of government infrastructures. Continuity of Government | | (COG) was ostensibly created to assure government | | functioning during war, especially nuclear war. The Agency | | was so secret that even many members of the Pentagon were | | unaware of its existence and most of its work was done | | without congressional oversight. | | Project 908, as the DMPSA was sometimes called, was | | similar to its parent agency FEMA in that it came under | | investigation for mismanagement and contract | | irregularities.[4] During this same period, FEMA had been | | fraught with scandals including emergency planning with a | | distinctly anti-constitutional flavor. The agency would | | have sidestepped Congress and other federal agencies and | | put the President and FEMA directly in charge of the U.S. | | planning for martial rule. Under this state, the executive | | would take upon itself powers far beyond those necessary to | | address national emergency contingencies.[5] | | Bush's "anything goes" anti-drug strategy, announced | | on September 6, 1989, suggested that executive emergency | | powers be used: to oust those suspected of associating | | with drug users or sellers from public and private housing; | | to mobilize the National Guard and U.S. military to fight | | drugs in the continental U.S.; to confiscate private | | property belonging to drug users, and to incarcerate first | | time offenders in work camps.[6] | | The record of Bush's fast and loose approach to | | constitutionally guaranteed civil rights is a history of | | the erosion of liberty and the consolidation of an imperial | | executive. | | | | 1. Executive Order 11921, "Emergency preparedness Functions, | | June 11, 1976. Federal Register, vol. 41, no. 116. The | | report was attacked by such notables as Ray Cline, the | | CIA's former Deputy Director, retired CIA intelligence | | analyst Arthur Macy Cox, and the former head of the U.S. | | Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Paul Warnke for | | blatantly manipulating CIA intelligence to achieve the | | political ends of Team B's rightwing members. See Cline, | | quoted in "Carter to Inherit Intense Dispute on Soviet | | Intentions," Mary Marder, "Washington Post," January 2, | | 1977; Arthur Macy Cox, "Why the U.S. Since 1977 Has | | Been Mis-perceiving Soviet Military Strength," "New York | | Times," October 20, 1980; Paul Warnke, "George Bush and | | Team B," "New York Times," September 24, 1988. | | | | 2. George Bush, "Public Report of the Vice President's Task | | Force On Combatting Terrorism" (Washington, D.C.: U.S. | | Government Printing Office), February 1986. | | | | 3. Robert J. Walsh, Assistant Commissioner, Investigations | | Division, Immigration and Naturalization Service, "Alien | | Border Control Committee" (Washington, DC), October 1, | | 1988. | | | | 4. Steven Emerson, "America's Doomsday Project," "U.S. News | | & World Report," August 7, 1989. | | | | 5. See: Diana Reynolds, "FEMA and the NSC: The Rise of the | | National Security State," "CAIB," Number 33 (Winter 1990); | | Keenan Peck, "The Take-Charge Gang," "The Progressive," | | May 1985; Jack Anderson, "FEMA Wants to Lead Economic | | War," "Washington Post," January 10, 1985. | | | | 6. These Presidential powers were authorized by the Anti- | | Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Public Law 100-690: 100th | | Congress. See also: Diana Reynolds, "The Golden Lie," | | "The Humanist," September/October 1990; Michael Isikoff, | | "Is This Determination or Using a Howitzer to Kill a | | Fly?" "Washington Post National Weekly," August 27-, | | September 2, 1990; Bernard Weintraub, "Bush Considers | | Calling Guard To Fight Drug Violence in Capital," "New | | York Times," March 21, 1989. | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------

---Continued in FEMA pt 2 ------------------------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy Subject: FEMA Summary Pt 2 Lines: 467

----FEMA pt 2 continued ----------------------------------------------

Even those Executive Orders which have been made public tend to raise as many questions as they answer about what actions were considered and actually implemented. On January 8, 1991, Bush signed Executive Order 12742, National Security Industrial Responsiveness, which ordered the rapid mobilization of resources such as food, energy, construction materials and civil transportation to meet national security requirements. There was, however, no mention in this or any other EO of the National Defense Executive Reserve (NDER) plan administered under FEMA. This plan, which had been activated during World War II and the Korean War, permits the federal government during a state of emergency to bring into government certain unidentified individuals. On January 7, 1991 the "Wall Street Journal Europe" reported that industry and government officials were studying a plan which would permit the federal government to "borrow" as many as 50 oil company executives and put them to work streamlining the flow of energy in case of a prolonged engagement or disruption of supply. Antitrust waivers were also being pursued and oil companies were engaged in emergency preparedness exercises with the Department of Energy.[5]

Wasting the Environment In one case the use of secret powers was discovered by a watchdog group and revealed in the press. In August 1990, correspondence passed between Colin McMillan, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Production and Logistics and Michael Deland, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The letters responded to presidential and National Security Council directives to deal with increased industrial production and logistics arising from the situation in the Middle East. The communications revealed that the Pentagon had found it necessary to request emergency waivers to U.S. environmental restrictions.[6] The agreement to waive the National Environmental Policy Act (1970) came in August. Because of it, the Pentagon was allowed to test new weapons in the western U.S., increase production of materiel and launch new activities at military bases without the complex public review normally required. The information on the waiver was eventually released by the Boston-based National Toxic Campaign Fund (NTCF), an environmental group which investigates pollution on the nation's military bases. It was not until January 30, 1991, five months after it went into effect, that the "New York Times," acting on the NTCF information, reported that the White House had bypassed the usual legal requirement for environmental impact statements on Pentagon projects.[7] So far, no specific executive order or presidential finding authorizing this waiver has been discovered. Other environmental waivers could also have been enacted without the public being informed. Under a state of national emergency, U.S. warships can be exempted from international conventions on pollution[8] and public vessels can be allowed to dispose of potentially infectious medical wastes into the oceans.[9] The President can also suspend any of the statutory provisions regarding the production, testing, transportation, deployment, and disposal of chemical and biological warfare agents (50 USC sec. 1515). He could also defer destruction of up to 10 percent of lethal chemical agents and munitions that existed on November 8, 1985.[10] One Executive Order which was made public dealt with "Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation." Signed by Bush on November 16, 1990, EO 12735 leaves the impression that Bush is ordering an increased effort to end the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. The order states that these weapons "constitute a threat to national security and foreign policy" and declares a national emergency to deal with the threat. To confront this threat, Bush ordered international negotiations, the imposition of controls, licenses, and sanctions against foreign persons and countries for proliferation. Conveniently, the order grants the Secretaries of State and the Treasury the power to exempt the U.S. military. In February of 1991, the Omnibus Export Amendments Act was passed by Congress compatible with EO 12735. It imposed sanctions on countries and companies developing or using chemical or biological weapons. Bush signed the law, although he had rejected the identical measure the year before because it did not give him the executive power to waive all sanctions if he thought the national interest required it.[11] The new bill, however, met Bush's requirements.

____________________________________________________________________ | | | BUSH'S EXECUTIVE ORDERS | | | | * EO 12722 "Blocking Iraqi Government Property and | | Prohibiting Transactions With Iraq," Aug. 2, 1990. | | | | * EO 12723 "Blocking Kuwaiti Government Property," Aug. 2, | | 1990. | | | | * EO 12724 "Blocking Iraqi Government Property and | | Prohibiting Transactions With Iraq," Aug. 9, 1990. | | | | * EO 12725 "Blocking Kuwaiti Government Property and | | Prohibiting Transactions With Kuwait," Aug. 9, 1990. | | | | * EO 12727 "Ordering the Selected Reserve of the Armed | | Forces to Active Duty," Aug. 22, 1990. | | | | * EO 12728 "Delegating the President's Authority To | | Suspend Any Provision of Law Relating to the Promotion, | | Retirement, or Separation of Members of the Armed Forces," | | Aug. 22, 1990. | | | | * EO 12733 "Authorizing the Extension of the Period of | | Active Duty of Personnel of the Selected Reserve of the | | Armed Forces," Nov. 13, 1990. | | | | * EO 12734 "National Emergency Construction Authority," Nov. | | 14, 1990. | | | | * EO 12735 "Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation," | | Nov. 16, 1990. | | | | * EO 12738 "Administration of Foreign Assistance and Related | | Functions and Arms Export Control," Dec. 14, 1990. | | | | * EO 12742 "National Security Industrial Responsiveness," | | Jan. 8, 1991. | | | | * EO 12743 "Ordering the Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces | | to Active Duty," Jan. 18, 1991. | | | | * EO 12744 "Designation of Arabian Peninsula Areas, Airspace | | and Adjacent Waters as a Combat Zone," Jan. 21, 1991. | | | | * EO 12750 "Designation of Arabian Peninsula Areas, Airspace | | and Adjacent Waters as the Persian Gulf Desert Shield | | Area," Feb. 14, 1991. | | | | * EO 12751 "Health Care Services for Operation Desert | | Storm," Feb. 14, 1991. | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------

Going Off Budget Although some of the powers which Bush assumed in order to conduct the Gulf War were taken openly, they received little public discussion or reporting by the media. In October, when the winds of the Gulf War were merely a breeze, Bush used his executive emergency powers to extend his budget authority. This action made the 1991 fiscal budget agreement between Congress and the President one of the first U.S. casualties of the war. While on one hand the deal froze arms spending through 1996, it also allowed Bush to put the cost of the Gulf War "off budget." Thus, using its emergency powers, the Bush administration could:

* incur a deficit which exceeds congressional budget authority;

* prevent Congress from raising a point of order over the excessive spending;[12]

* waive the requirement that the Secretary of Defense submit estimates to Congress prior to deployment of a major defense acquisition system;

* and exempt the Pentagon from congressional restrictions on hiring private contractors.[13]

While there is no published evidence on which powers Bush actually invoked, the administration was able to push through the 1990 Omnibus Reconciliation Act. This legislation put a cap on domestic spending, created a record $300 billion deficit, and undermined the Gramm- Rudman-Hollings Act intended to reduce the federal deficit. Although Congress agreed to pay for the war through supplemental appropriations and approved a $42.2 billion supplemental bill and a $4.8 billion companion "dire emergency supplemental appropriation,"[14] it specified that the supplemental budget should not be used to finance costs the Pentagon would normally experience.[15] Lawrence Korb, a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, believes that the Pentagon has already violated the spirit of the 1990 Omnibus Reconciliation Act. It switched funding for the Patriot, Tomahawk, Hellfire and HARM missiles from its regular budget to the supplemental budget; added normal wear and tear of equipment to supplemental appropriations; and made supplemental requests which ignore a planned 25% reduction in the armed forces by 1995.[16]

The Cost In Liberty Lost Under emergency circumstances, using 50 USC sec. 1811, the President could direct the Attorney General to authorize electronic surveillance of aliens and American citizens in order to obtain foreign intelligence information without a court order.[17] No Executive Order has been published which activates emergency powers to wiretap or to engage in counter-terrorist activity. Nonetheless, there is substantial evidence that such activities have taken place. According to the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, the FBI launched an anti-terrorist campaign which included a broad sweep of Arab-Americans. Starting in August, the FBI questioned, detained, and harassed Arab-Americans in California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Colorado.[18] A CIA agent asked the University of Connecticut for a list of all foreign students at the institution, along with their country of origin, major field of study, and the names of their academic advisers. He was particularly interested in students from the Middle East and explained that the Agency intended to open a file on each of the students. Anti-war groups have also reported several break-ins of their offices and many suspected electronic surveillance of their telephones.[19]

Pool of Disinformation Emergency powers to control the means of communications in the U.S. in the name of national security were never formally declared. There was no need for Bush to do so since most of the media voluntarily and even eagerly cooperated in their own censorship. Reporters covering the Coalition forces in the Gulf region operated under restrictions imposed by the U.S. military. They were, among other things, barred from traveling without a military escort, limited in their forays into the field to small escorted groups called "pools," and required to submit all reports and film to military censors for clearance. Some reporters complained that the rules limited their ability to gather information independently, thereby obstructing informed and objective reporting.[20] Three Pentagon press officials in the Gulf region admitted to James LeMoyne of the "New York Times" that they spent significant time analyzing reporters' stories in order to shape the coverage in the Pentagon's favor. In the early days of the deployment, Pentagon press officers warned reporters who asked hard questions that they were seen as "anti-military" and that their requests for interviews with senior commanders and visits to the field were in jeopardy. The military often staged events solely for the cameras and would stop televised interviews in progress when it did not like what was being portrayed. Although filed soon after the beginning of the war, a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of press restrictions was not heard until after the war ended. It was then dismissed when the judge ruled that since the war had ended, the issues raised had become moot. The legal status of the restrictions--initially tested during the U.S. invasions of Grenada and Panama--remains unsettled.

A National Misfortune It will be years before researchers and journalists are able to ferret through the maze of government documents and give a full appraisal of the impact of the President's emergency powers on domestic affairs. It is likely, however, that with a post-war presidential approval rating exceeding 75 percent, the domestic casualties will continue to mount with few objections. Paradoxically, even though the U.S. public put pressure on Bush to send relief for the 500,000 Iraqi Kurdish refugees, it is unlikely the same outcry will be heard for the 37 million Americans without health insurance, the 32 million living in poverty, or the country's five million hungry children. The U.S. may even help rebuild Kuwaiti and Iraqi civilian infrastructures it destroyed during the war while leaving its own education system in decay, domestic transportation infrastructures crumbling, and inner city war zones uninhabitable. And, while the U.S. assists Kuwait in cleaning up its environmental disaster, it will increase pollution at home. Indeed, as the long-dead Prussian field marshal prophesied, "a war, even the most victorious, is a national misfortune."

FOOTNOTES:

1. The administrative guideline was established under Reagan in Executive Order 12656, November 18,1988, "Federal Register," vol. 23, no. 266.

2. For instance, National Security Council policy papers or National Security Directives (NSD) or National Security Decision Directives (NSDD) have today evolved into a network of shadowy, wide-ranging and potent executive powers. These are secret instruments, maintained in a top security classified state and are not shared with Congress. For an excellent discussion see: Harold C. Relyea, The Coming of Secret Law, "Government Information Quarterly," Vol. 5, November 1988; see also: Eve Pell, "The Backbone of Hidden Government," "The Nation," June 19,1990.

3. "Letter to Congressional Leaders Reporting on the National Emergency With Respect to Iraq," February, 11, 1991, "Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents: Administration of George Bush," (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), pp. 158-61.

4. The U.S. now has states of emergency with Iran, Iraq and Syria.

5. Allanna Sullivan, "U.S. Oil Concerns Confident Of Riding Out Short Gulf War," "Wall Street Journal Europe," January 7, 1991.

6. Colin McMillan, Letter to Michael Deland, Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality (Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President), August 24, 1990; Michael R. Deland, Letter to Colin McMillan, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Production and Logistics (Washington, DC: Department of Defense), August 29,1990.

7. Keith Schneider, "Pentagon Wins Waiver Of Environmental Rule," "New York Times," January 30, 1991.

8. 33 U.S. Code (USC) sec. 1902 9(b).

9. 33 USC sec. 2503 l(b).

10. 50 USC sec. 1521(b) (3)(A).

ll. Adam Clymer, "New Bill Mandates Sanctions On Makers of Chemical Arms," "New York Times," February 22, 1991.

12. 31 USC O10005 (f); 2 USC O632 (i), 6419 (d), 907a (b); and Public Law 101-508, Title X999, sec. 13101.

13. 10 USC sec. 2434/2461 9F.

14. When the Pentagon expected the war to last months and oil prices to skyrocket, it projected the incremental cost of deploying and redeploying the forces and waging war at about $70 billion. The administration sought and received $56 billion in pledges from allies such as Germany, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Although the military's estimates of casualties and the war's duration were highly inflated, today their budget estimates remain at around $70 billion even though the Congressional Budget office estimates that cost at only $40 billion, $16 billion less than allied pledges.

15. Michael Kamish, "After The War: At Home, An Unconquered Recession," "Boston Globe," March 6, 1991; Peter Passell, "The Big Spoils From a Bargain War," "New York Times," March 3, 1991; and Alan Abelson, "A War Dividend For The Defense Industry?" "Barron's," March 18, 1991.

16. Lawrence Korb, "The Pentagon's Creative Budgetry Is Out of Line," "International Herald Tribune," April 5, 199l.

17. Many of the powers against aliens are automatically invoked during a national emergency or state of war. Under the Alien Enemies Act (50 USC sec. 21), the President can issue an order to apprehend, restrain, secure and remove all subjects of a hostile nation over 13 years old. Other statutes conferring special powers on the President with regard to aliens that may be exercised in times of war or emergencies but are not confined to such circumstances, are: exclusion of all or certain classes of aliens from entry into the U.S. when their entry may be "detrimental to the interests of the United States" (8 USC sec. 1182(f)); imposition of travel restrictions on aliens within the U.S. (8 USC sec. 1185); and requiring aliens to be fingerprinted (8 USC sec. 1302).

18. Ann Talamas, "FBI Targets Arab-Americans," "CAIB," Spring 1991, p. 4.

19. "Anti-Repression Project Bulletin" (New York: Center for Constitutional Rights), January 23, 1991.

20. James DeParle, "Long Series of Military Decisions Led to Gulf War News Censorship," "New York Times," May 5, 1991.

21. James LeMoyne, "A Correspondent's Tale: Pentagon's Strategy for the Press: Good News or No News," "New York Times," February 17, 1991.

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---------------------------------END:REF2---------------------------------

---------------------------------REF3:FEMA--------------------------------

Article 2132 of alt.activism: Newsgroups: alt.activism Subject: Plan to suspend the Constitution (1984; maybe 1991?) Distribution: usa Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 72

[PeaceNet forward from AML (ACTIV-L) -- see bottom for more info] ------------------------------------------------------------------ /** mideast.forum: 216.5 **/ ** Written 8:11 pm Jan 17, 1991 by nlgclc in cdp:mideast.forum ** An excellent book which deals with the REX 84 detention plan is: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ``Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North,'' by Ben Bradlee Jr. (Donald I. Fine, $21.95. 573 pp.) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Reviewed by Dennis M. Culnan Copyright 1990, Gannett News Service All Rights Reserved Short excerpt posted here under applicable copyright laws

[Oliver] North managed to network himself into the highest levels of the CIA and power centers around the world. There he lied and boastfully ignored the constitutional process, Bradlee writes.

Yet more terrifying is the plan hatched by North and other Reagan people in the Federal Emergency Manpower Agency (FEMA): A blueprint for the military takeover of the United States. The plan called for FEMA to become ``emergency czar'' in the event of a national emergency such as nuclear war or an American invasion of a foreign nation. FEMA would also be a buffer between the president and his cabinet and other civilian agencies, and would have broad powers to appoint military commanders and run state and local governments. Finally, it would have the authority to order suspect aliens into concentration camps and seize their property.

When then-Attorney General William French Smith got wind of the plan, he killed it. After Smith left the administration, North and his FEMA cronies came up with the Defense Resource Act, designed to suspendend the First Amendment by imposing censorship and banning strikes.

Where was it all heading? The book's answer: ``REX-84 Bravo, a National Security Decision Directive 52 that would become operative with the president's declaration of a state of national emergency concurrent with a mythical U.S. military invasion of an unspecified Central American country, presumably Nicaragua.''

Bradlee writes that the Rex exercise was designed to test FEMA's readiness to assume authority over the Department of Defense, the National Guard in all 50 states, and ``a number of state defense forces to be established by state legislatures.'' The military would then be ``deputized,'' thus making an end run around federal law forbidding military involvement in domestic law enforcement.

Rex, which ran concurrently with the first annual U.S. show of force in Honduras in April 1984, was also designed to test FEMA's ability to round up 400,000 undocumented Central American aliens in the United States and its ability to distribute hundreds of tons of small arms to ``state defense forces.''

Incredibly, REX 84 was similar to a plan secretly adopted by Reagan while governor of California. His two top henchmen then were Edwin Meese, who recently resigned as U.S. attorney general, and Louis Guiffrida, the FEMA director in 1984.

If the review makes you nervous, you should read the book!

--Chip Berlet ** End of text from cdp:mideast.forum **

--------------------------------END:REF3----------------------------------- ########################################################################### --------------------------------REF4:FEMA---------------------------------- Article 2231 of alt.activism: Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy Subject: WILL GULF WAR LEAD TO REPRESSION AT HOME? (_Guardian_ article) Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 188

[PeaceNet forward from AML (ACTIV-L) -- see bottom for more info] ------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the front-page article of the Jan. 16 issue of "The Guardian," which describes some of the U.S. government's planning for martial law in the event of the Gulf war. This is truly a scary scenario that should concern all civil libertarians and patriots. ------------------------------------------------------------------

WILL GULF WAR LEAD TO REPRESSION AT HOME? by Paul DeRienzo and Bill Weinberg

On August 2, 1990, as Saddam Hussein's army was consolidating control over Kuwait, President George Bush responded by signing two executive orders that were the first step toward martial law in the United States and suspending the Constitution.

On the surface, Executive Orders 12722 and 12723, declaring a "national emergency," merely invoked laws that allowed Bush to freeze Iraqi assets in the United States.

The International Emergency Executive Powers Act permits the president to freeze foreign assets after declaring a "national emergency," a move that has been made three times before -- against Panama in 1987, Nicaragua in 1985 and Iran in 1979.

According to Professor Diana Reynolds, of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Boston's Tufts University, when Bush declared a national emergency he "activated one part of a contingency national security emergency plan." That plan is made up of a series of laws passed since the presidency of Richard Nixon, which Reynolds says give the president "boundless" powers.

According to Reynolds, such laws as the Defense Industrial Revitalization and Disaster Relief Acts of 1983 "would permit the president to do anything from seizing the means of production, to conscripting a labor force, to relocating groups of citizens."

Reynolds says the net effect of invoking these laws would be the suspension of the Constitution.

She adds that national emergency powers "permit the stationing of the military in cities and towns, closing off the U.S. borders, freezing all imports and exports, allocating all resources on a national security priority, monitoring and censoring the press, and warrantless searches and seizures."

The measures would allow military authorities to proclaim martial law in the United States, asserts Reynolds. She defines martial law as the "federal authority taking over for local authority when they are unable to maintain law and order or to assure a republican form of government."

A report called "Post Attack Recovery Strategies," about rebuilding the country after a nuclear war, prepared by the right-wing Hudson Institute in 1980, defines martial law as dealing "with the control of civilians by their own military forces in time of emergency."

The federal agency with the authority to organize and command the government's response to a national emergency is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This super-secret and elite agency was formed in 1979 under congressional measures that merged all federal powers dealing with civilian and military emergencies under one agency.

FEMA has its roots in the World War I partnership between government and corporate leaders who helped mobilize the nation's industries to support the war effort. The idea of a central national response to large-scale emergencies was reintroduced in the early 1970s by Louis Giuffrida, a close associate of then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan and his chief aide Edwin Meese.

Reagan appointed Giuffrida head of the California National Guard in 1969. With Meese, Giuffrida organized "war-games" to prepare for "statewide martial law" in the event that Black nationalists and anti-war protesters "challenged the authority of the state." In 1981, Reagan as president moved Giuffrida up to the big leagues, appointing him director of FEMA.

According to Reynolds, however, it was the actions of George Bush in 1976, while he was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that provided the stimulus for centralization of vast powers in FEMA.

Bush assembled a group of hawkish outsiders, called Team B, that released a report claiming the CIA ("Team A") had underestimated the dangers of Soviet nuclear attack. The report advised the development of elaborate plans for "civil defense" and post-nuclear government. Three years later, in 1979, FEMA was given ultimate responsibility for developing these plans.

Aware of the bad publicity FEMA was getting because of its role in organizing for a post-nuclear world, Reagan's FEMA chief Giuffrida publicly argued that the 1865 Posse Comitatus Act prohibited the military from arresting civilians.

However, Reynolds says that Congress eroded the act by giving the military reserves an exemption from Posse Comitatus and allowing them to arrest civilians. The National Guard, under the control of state governors in peace time, is also exempt from the act and can arrest civilians.

FEMA Inspector General John Brinkerhoff has written a memo contending that the government doesn't need to suspend the Constitution to use the full range of powers Congress has given the agency. FEMA has prepared legislation to be introduced in Congress in the event of a national emergency that would give the agency sweeping powers. The right to "deputize" National Guard and police forces is included in the package. But Reynolds believes that actual martial law need not be declared publicly.

Giuffrida has written that "Martial Rule comes into existence upon a determination (not a declaration) by the senior military commander that the civil government must be replaced because it is no longer functioning anyway." He adds that "Martial Rule is limited only by the principle of necessary force."

According to Reynolds, it is possible for the president to make declarations concerning a national emergency secretly in the form of a Natioanl Security Decision Directive. Most such directives are classified as so secret that Reynolds says "researchers don't even know how many are enacted."

DOMESTIC SPYING

Throughout the 1980s, FEMA was prohibited from engaging in intelligence gathering. But on July 6, 1989, Bush signed Executive Order 12681, pronouncing that FEMA's National Preparedness Directorate would "have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work." Recent events indicate that domestic spying in response to the looming Middle East war is now under way.

Reynolds reports that "the CIA is going to various campuses asking for information on Middle Eastern students. I'm sure that there are intelligence organizations monitoring peace demonstrations." According to the University of Connecticut student paper, the Daily Campus, CIA officials have recently met there to discuss talking with Middle Eastern students.

The New York Times reports that the FBI has ordered its agents around the country to question Arab-American leaders and business people in search of information on potential Iraqi "terrorist" attacks in response to a Gulf war.

A 1986 Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) document entitled "Alien Terrorists and Other Undesirables: A Contingency Plan" outlines the potential round-up and incarceration in mass detainment camps of U.S. residents who are citizens of "terrorist" countries, chiefly in the Middle East. This plan echoed a 1984 FEMA nationwide "readiness exercise code-named REX-84 ALPHA, which included the rehearsal of joint operations with the INS to round up 40,000 Central American refugees in the event of a U.S. invasion of the region. One of the 10 military bases established as detainment camps by REX-84 ALPHA, Camp Krome, Fla., was designated a joint FEMA-Immigration service interrogation center.

Recently, FEMA has been criticized in the media for inadequate response to the October, 1989 San Francisco earthquake. What the mainstream press has failed to cover is the agency's planned role in repressing domestic dissent in the event of an invasion abroad.

Source: The Guardian, Jan 16 1991

The Guardian is an independent radical news weekly. Subscriptions are available at $33.50 per year from The Guardian, 33 West 17th St., New York, NY 10011

Origin:Socialism_On_Line 203-274-4639

from the Radical_Politics conference on The NY Transfer BBS 718-448-2358 & 718-448-2683

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----------------------------END:REF4------------------------------------ ######################################################################## ----------------------------REF5:NSDD 145-------------------------------

DATE OF UPLOAD: November 17, 1989 ORIGIN OF UPLOAD: Omni Magazine CONTRIBUTED BY: Donald Goldberg ======================================================== PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE BBS ======================================================== Although this article does not deal directly with UFOs, ParaNet felt it important as an offering to our readers who depend so much upon communications as a way to stay informed. This article raises some interesting implications for the future of communications.

THE NATIONAL GUARDS (C) 1987 OMNI MAGAZINE MAY 1987 (Reprinted with permission and license to ParaNet Information Service and its affiliates.)

By Donald Goldberg

The mountains bend as the fjord and the sea beyond stretch out before the viewer's eyes. First over the water, then a sharp left turn, then a bank to the right between the peaks, and the secret naval base unfolds upon the screen. The scene is of a Soviet military installation on the Kola Peninsula in the icy Barents Sea, a place usually off-limits to the gaze of the Western world. It was captured by a small French satellite called SPOT Image, orbiting at an altitude of 517 miles above the hidden Russian outpost. On each of several passes -- made over a two-week period last fall -- the satellite's high- resolution lens took its pictures at a different angle; the images were then blended into a three-dimensional, computer- generated video. Buildings, docks, vessels, and details of the Artic landscape are all clearly visible. Half a world away and thousands of feet under the sea, sparkling-clear images are being made of the ocean floor. Using the latest bathymetric technology and state-of-the-art systems known as Seam Beam and Hydrochart, researchers are for the first time assembling detailed underwater maps of the continental shelves and the depths of the world's oceans. These scenes of the sea are as sophisticated as the photographs taken from the satellite. From the three-dimensional images taken far above the earth to the charts of the bottom of the oceans, these photographic systems have three things in common: They both rely on the latest technology to create accurate pictures never dreamed of even 25 years ago; they are being made widely available by commerical, nongovernmental enterprises; and the Pentagon is trying desperately to keep them from the general public. In 1985 the Navy classified the underwater charts, making them available only to approved researchers whose needs are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Under a 1984 law the military has been given a say in what cameras can be licensed to be used on American satellites; and officials have already announced they plan to limit the quality and resolution of photos made available. The National Security Agency (NSA) -- the secret arm of the Pentagon in charge of gathering electronic intelligence as well as protecting sensitive U.S. communications -- has defeated a move to keep it away from civilian and commercial computers and databases. That attitude has outraged those concerned with the military's increasing efforts to keep information not only from the public but from industry experts, scientists, and even other government officials as well. "That's like classifying a road map for fear of invasion," says Paul Wolff, assistant administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, of the attempted restrictions. These attempts to keep unclassified data out of the hands of scientists, researchers, the news media, and the public at large are a part of an alarming trend that has seen the military take an ever-increasing role in controlling the flow of information and communications through American society, a role traditionally -- and almost exclusively -- left to civilians. Under the approving gaze of the Reagan administration, Department of Defense (DoD) officials have quietly implemented a number of policies, decisions, and orders that give the military unprecedented control over both the content and public use of data and communications. For example:

**The Pentagon has created a new category of "sensitive" but unclassified information that allows it to keep from public access huge quantities of data that were once widely accessible. **Defense Department officials have attempted to rewrite key laws that spell out when the president can and cannot appropriate private communications facilities. **The Pentagon has installed a system that enables it to seize control of the nation's entire communications network -- the phone system, data transmissions, and satellite transmissions of all kinds -- in the event of what it deems a "national emergency." As yet there is no single, universally agreed-upon definition of what constitutes such a state. Usually such an emergency is restricted to times of natural disaster, war, or when national security is specifically threatened. Now the military has attempted to redefine emergency. The point man in the Pentagon's onslaught on communications is Assistant Defense Secretary Donald C. Latham, a former NSA deputy chief. Latham now heads up an interagency committee in charge of writing and implementing many of the policies that have put the military in charge of the flow of civilian information and communication. He is also the architect of National Security Decision Directive 145 (NSDD 145), signed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in 1984, which sets out the national policy on telecommunications and computer-systems security. First NSDD 145 set up a steering group of top-level administration officials. Their job is to recommend ways to protect information that is unclassified but has been designated sensitive. Such information is held not only by government agencies but by private companies as well. And last October the steering group issued a memorandum that defined sensitive information and gave federal agencies broad new powers to keep it from the public. According to Latham, this new category includes such data as all medical records on government databases -- from the files of the National Cancer Institute to information on every veteran who has ever applied for medical aid from the Veterans Administration -- and all the information on corporate and personal taxpayers in the Internal Revenue Service's computers. Even agricultural statistics, he argues, can be used by a foreign power against the United States. In his oversize yet Spartan Pentagon office, Latham cuts anything but an intimidating figure. Articulate and friendly, he could pass for a network anchorman or a television game show host. When asked how the government's new definition of sensitive information will be used, he defends the necessity for it and tries to put to rest concerns about a new restrictiveness. "The debate that somehow the DoD and NSA are going to monitor or get into private databases isn't the case at all," Latham insists. "The definition is just a guideline, just an advisory. It does not give the DoD the right to go into private records." Yet the Defense Department invoked the NSDD 145 guidelines when it told the information industry it intends to restrict the sale of data that are now unclassified and publicly available from privately owned computer systems. The excuse if offered was that these data often include technical information that might be valuable to a foreign adversary like the Soviet Union. Mead Data Central -- which runs some of the nation's largest computer databases, such as Lexis and Nexis, and has nearly 200,000 users -- says it has already been approached by a team of agents from the Air Force and officials from the CIA and the FBI who asked for the names of subscribers and inquired what Mead officials might do if information restrictions were imposed. In response to government pressure, Mead Data Central in effect censured itself. It purged all unclassified government-supplied technical data from its system and completely dropped the National Technical Information System from its database rather than risk a confrontation. Representative Jack Brooks, a Texas Democrat who chairs the House Government Operations Committee, is an outspoken critic of the NSA's role in restricting civilian information. He notes that in 1985 the NSA -- under the authority granted by NSDD 145 -- investigated a computer program that was widely used in both local and federal elections in 1984. The computer system was used to count more than one third of all votes cast in the United States. While probing the system's vulnerability to outside manipulation, the NSA obtained a detailed knowledge of that computer program. "In my view," Brooks says, "this is an unprecedented and ill-advised expansion of the military's influence in our society." There are other NSA critics. "The computer systems used by counties to collect and process votes have nothing to do with national security, and I'm really concerned about the NSA's involvement," says Democratic congressman Dan Glickman of Kansas, chairman of the House science and technology subcommittee concerned with computer security. Also, under NSDD 145 the Pentagon has issued an order, virtually unknown to all but a few industry executives, that affects commercial communications satellites. The policy was made official by Defense Secretary Weinberger in June of 1985 and requires that all commercial satellite operators that carry such unclassified government data traffic as routine Pentagon supply information and payroll data (and that compete for lucrative government contracts) install costly protective systems on all satellites launched after 1990. The policy does not directly affect the data over satellite channels, but it does make the NSA privy to vital information about the essential signals needed to operate a satellite. With this information it could take control of any satellite it chooses. Latham insists this, too, is a voluntary policy and that only companies that wish to install protection will have their systems evaluated by the NSA. He also says industry officials are wholly behind the move, and argues that the protective systems are necessary. With just a few thousand dollars' worth of equipment, a disgruntled employee could interfere with a satellite's control signals and disable or even wipe out a hundred-million-dollar satellite carrying government information. At best, his comments are misleading. First, the policy is not voluntary. The NSA can cut off lucrative government contracts to companies that do not comply with the plan. The Pentagon alone spent more than a billion dollars leasing commercial satellite channels last year; that's a powerful incentive for business to cooperate. Second, the industry's support is anything but total. According to the minutes of one closed-door meeting between NSA officials -- along with representatives of other federal agencies -- and executives from AT&T, Comsat, GTE Sprint, and MCI, the executives neither supported the move nor believed it was necessary. The NSA defended the policy by arguing that a satellite could be held for ransom if the command and control links weren't protected. But experts at the meeting were skeptical. "Why is the threat limited to accessing the satellite rather than destroying it with lasers or high-powered signals?" one industry executive wanted to know. Most of the officials present objected to the high cost of protecting the satellites. According to a 1983 study made at the request of the Pentagon, the protection demanded by the NSA could add as much as $3 million to the price of a satellite and $1 million more to annual operating costs. Costs like these, they argue, could cripple a company competing against less expensive communications networks. Americans get much of their information through forms of electronic communications, from the telephone, television and radio, and information printed in many newspapers. Banks send important financial data, businesses their spreadsheets, and stockbrokers their investment portfolios, all over the same channels, from satellite signals to computer hookups carried on long distance telephone lines. To make sure that the federal government helped to promote and protect the efficient use of this advancing technology, Congress passed the massive Communications Act of of 1934. It outlined the role and laws of the communications structure in the United States. The powers of the president are set out in Section 606 of that law; basically it states that he has the authority to take control of any communications facilities that he believes "essential to the national defense." In the language of the trade this is known as a 606 emergency. There have been a number of attempts in recent years by Defense Department officials to redefine what qualifies as a 606 emergency and make it easier for the military to take over national communications. In 1981 the Senate considered amendments to the 1934 act that would allow the president, on Defense Department recommendation, to require any communications company to provide services, facilities, or equipment "to promote the national defense and security or the emergency preparedness of the nation," even in peacetime and without a declared state of emergency. The general language had been drafted by Defense Department officials. (The bill failed to pass the House for unrelated reasons.) "I think it is quite clear that they have snuck in there some powers that are dangerous for us as a company and for the public at large," said MCI vice president Kenneth Cox before the Senate vote. Since President Reagan took office, the Pentagon has stepped up its efforts to rewrite the definition of national emergency and give the military expanded powers in the United States. "The declaration of 'emergency' has always been vague," says one former administration official who left the government in 1982 after ten years in top policy posts. "Different presidents have invoked it differently. This administration would declare a convenient 'emergency.'" In other words, what is a nuisance to one administration might qualify as a burgeoning crisis to another. For example, the Reagan administration might decide that a series of protests on or near military bases constituted a national emergency. Should the Pentagon ever be given the green light, its base for taking over the nation's communications system would be a nondescript yellow brick building within the maze of high rises, government buildings, and apartment complexes that make up the Washington suburb of Arlington, Virginia. Headquartered in a dusty and aging structure surrounded by a barbed-wire fence is an obscure branch of the military known as the Defense Communications Agency (DCA). It does not have the spit and polish of the National Security Agency or the dozens of other government facilities that make up the nation's capital. But its lack of shine belies its critical mission: to make sure all of America's far-flung military units can communicate with one another. It is in certain ways the nerve center of our nation's defense system. On the second floor of the DCA's four-story headquarters is a new addition called the National Coordinating Center (NCC). Operated by the Pentagon, it is virtually unknown outside of a handful of industry and government officials. The NCC is staffed around the clock by representatives of a dozen of the nation's largest commercial communications companies -- the so-called "common carriers" -- including AT&T, MCI, GTE, Comsat, and ITT. Also on hand are officials from the State Department, the CIA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and a number of other federal agencies. During a 606 emergency the Pentagon can order the companies that make up the National Coordinating Center to turn over their satellite, fiberoptic, and land-line facilities to the government. On a long corridor in the front of the building is a series of offices, each outfitted with a private phone, a telex machine, and a combination safe. It's known as "logo row" because each office is occupied by an employee from one of the companies that staff the NCC and because their corporate logos hand on the wall outside. Each employee is on permanent standby, ready to activate his company's system should the Pentagon require it. The National Coordinating Center's mission is as grand as its title is obscure: to make available to the Defense Department all the facilities of the civilian communications network in this country -- the phone lines, the long-distance satellite hookups, the data transmission lines -- in times of national emergency. If war breaks out and communications to a key military base are cut, the Pentagon wants to make sure that an alternate link can be set up as fast as possible. Company employees assigned to the center are on call 24 hours a day; they wear beepers outside the office, and when on vacation they must be replaced by qualified colleagues. The center formally opened on New Year's Day, 1984, the same day Ma Bell's monopoly over the telephone network of the entire United States was finally broken. The timing was no coincidence. Pentagon officials had argued for years along with AT&T against the divestiture of Ma Bell, on grounds of national security. Defense Secretary Weinberger personally urged the attorney general to block the lawsuit that resulted in the breakup, as had his predecessor, Harold Brown. The reason was that rather than construct its own communications network, the Pentagon had come to rely extensively on the phone company. After the breakup the dependence continued. The Pentagon still used commercial companies to carry more than 90 percent of its communications within the continental United States. The 1984 divestiture put an end to AT&T's monopoly over the nation's telephone service and increased the Pentagon's obsession with having its own nerve center. Now the brass had to contend with several competing companies to acquire phone lines, and communications was more than a matter of running a line from one telephone to another. Satellites, microwave towers, fiberoptics, and other technological breakthroughs never dreamed of by Alexander Graham Bell were in extensive use, and not just for phone conversations. Digital data streams for computers flowed on the same networks. These facts were not lost on the Defense Department or the White House. According to documents obtained by Omni, beginning on December 14, 1982, a number of secret meetings were held between high-level administration officials and executives of the commercial communications companies whose employees would later staff the National Coordinating Center. The meetings, which continued over the next three years, were held at the White House, the State Department, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, and at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs. The industry officials attending constituted the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee -- called NSTAC (pronounced N-stack) -- set up by President Reagan to address those same problems that worried the Pentagon. It was at these secret meetings, according to the minutes, that the idea of a communications watch center for national emergencies -- the NCC -- was born. Along with it came a whole set of plans that would allow the military to take over commercial communications "assets" -- everything from ground stations and satellite dishes to fiberoptic cables -- across the country. At a 1983 Federal Communications Commission meeting, a ranking Defense Department official offered the following explanation for the founding of the National Coordinating Center: "We are looking at trying to make communications endurable for a protracted conflict." The phrase protracted conflict is a military euphemism for nuclear war. But could the NCC survive even the first volley in such a conflict? Not likely. It's located within a mile of the Pentagon, itself an obvious early target of a Soviet nuclear barrage (or a conventional strike, for that matter). And the Kremlin undoubtedly knows its location and importance, and presumably has included it on its priority target list. In sum, according to one Pentagon official, "The NCC itself is not viewed as a survivable facility." Furthermore, the NCC's "Implementation Plan," obtained by Omni, lists four phases of emergencies and how the center should respond to each. The first, Phase 0, is Peacetime, for which there would be little to do outside of a handful of routine tasks and exercises. Phase 1 is Pre Attack, in which alternate NCC sites are alerted. Phase 2 is Post Attack, in which other NCC locations are instructed to take over the center's functions. Phase 3 is known as Last Ditch, and in this phase whatever facility survives becomes the de facto NCC. So far there is no alternate National Coordinating Center to which NCC officials could retreat to survive an attack. According to NCC deputy director William Belford, no physical sites have yet been chosen for a substitute NCC, and even whether the NCC itself will survive a nuclear attack is still under study. Of what use is a communications center that is not expected to outlast even the first shots of a war and has no backup? The answer appears to be that because of the Pentagon's concerns about the AT&T divestiture and the disruptive effects it might have on national security, the NCC was to serve as the military's peacetime communications center. The center is a powerful and unprecedented tool to assume control over the nation's vast communications and information network. For years the Pentagon has been studying how to take over the common carriers' facilities. That research was prepared by NSTAC at the DoD's request and is contained in a series of internal Pentagon documents obtained by Omni. Collectively this series is known as the Satellite Survivability Report. Completed in 1984, it is the only detailed analysis to date of the vulnerabilities of the commercial satellite network. It was begun as a way of examining how to protect the network of communications facilities from attack and how to keep it intact for the DoD. A major part of the report also contains an analysis of how to make commercial satellites "interoperable" with Defense Department systems. While the report notes that current technical differences such as varying frequencies make it difficult for the Pentagon to use commercial satellites, it recommends ways to resolve those problems. Much of the report is a veritable blueprint for the government on how to take over satellites in orbit above the United States. This information, plus NSDD 145's demand that satellite operators tell the NSA how their satellites are controlled, guarantees the military ample knowledge about operating commercial satellites. The Pentagon now has an unprecedented access to the civilian communications network: commercial databases, computer networks, electronic links, telephone lines. All it needs is the legal authority to use them. Then it could totally dominate the flow of all information in the United States. As one high-ranking White House communications official put it: "Whoever controls communications, controls the country." His remark was made after our State Department could not communicate directly with our embassy in Manila during the anti-Marcos revolution last year. To get through, the State Department had to relay all its messages through the Philippine government. Government officials have offered all kinds of scenarios to justify the National Coordinating Center, the Satellite Survivability Report, new domains of authority for the Pentagon and the NSA, and the creation of top-level government steering groups to think of even more policies for the military. Most can be reduced to the rationale that inspired NSDD 145: that our enemies (presumably the Soviets) have to be prevented from getting too much information from unclassified sources. And the only way to do that is to step in and take control of those sources. Remarkably, the communications industry as a whole has not been concerned about the overall scope of the Pentagon's threat to its freedom of operation. Most protests have been to individual government actions. For example, a media coalition that includes the Radio-Television Society of Newspaper Editors, and the Turner Broadcasting System has been lobbying that before the government can restrict the use of satellites, it must demonstrate why such restrictions protect against a "threat to distinct and compelling national security and foreign policy interests." But the whole policy of restrictiveness has not been examined. That may change sometime this year, when the Office of Technology Assessment issues a report on how the Pentagon's policy will affect communications in the United States. In the meantime the military keeps trying to encroach on national communications. While it may seem unlikely that the Pentagon will ever get total control of our information and communications systems, the truth is that it can happen all too easily. The official mechanisms are already in place; and few barriers remain to guarantee that what we hear, see, and read will come to us courtesy of our being members of a free and open society and not courtesy of the Pentagon.

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-- *@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@* The accountability of government has gone to the point where the very use of the law is the instrument of illegality. -- Ralph Nader @ Harvard Law School, 1/15/92