President Barack Obama has leveraged heavy rhetoric on the subject of transparency for some time now, even going as far as to publish on the official White House website that his “Administration is committed to an unprecedented level of openness in Government.”

If this is open government, I can’t begin to imagine what a closed government is.

After Anwar al-Awlaki was allegedly assassinated in Yemen, the New York Times sought to find out the legal basis for the Obama administration’s secretive “kill list” which apparently can now include United States citizens.

The complaint, made by plaintiffs The New York Times Company, Charlie Savage, Scott Shane, and their undersigned attorney was filed after the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) refused to release agency records in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The plaintiffs contend that the requests were made properly and the DOJ improperly withheld the records which deal with the looming questions that surround the legality of so-called “targeted killing” under both American and international law.

The complaint cites “notable legal scholars, human rights activists, and current and former government officials [who] have called for the government to disclose its legal analysis justifying the use of targeted lethal force, especially as it applies to American citizens.”

I think that these questions are even more important in the aftermath of the House and Senate passing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) which allows American citizens to be indefinitely detained without charge or trial.

The complaint states that the New York Times filed proper FOIA requests seeking memoranda detailing the legal analysis and supposed justification behind killing American citizens, both before and after the al-Awlaki killing.

As of the filing of the complaint on December 20, 2011, the DOJ refused to release any of these memos or even any portions of the memoranda, claiming that they were classified and privileged, and thus are exempt from disclosure under the FOIA guidelines.

Even more absurd, the DOJ has actually refused to either confirm or deny the existence of some of the memos entirely.

This is after the The Washington Post published a story on September 30, 2011 which stated, “The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi,” which makes one wonder how The Washington Post knew such a thing when the DOJ refuses to even acknowledge any existence of the memo.

Peter Finn, the author of The Washington Post article stated that, “The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said.”

Why are officials willing to anonymously discuss these contentious issues with reporters but not willing to account for their decisions to the American people, in accordance with U.S. law?

Clearly, the Obama administration considers their stance transparency to be as iron clad as the rest of his campaign promises; that is to say, not at all.

Finn’s article stated that the nameless officials refused to elucidate the exact legal analysis that brought them to the decision, including how they considered any Fifth Amendment right to due process.

More importantly, the article quoted a “former senior intelligence official” who said that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “would not have killed an American without such a written opinion,” making it very unlikely that the DOJ does not possess such a document or cannot obtain it.

The complaint states that on October 7, 2011, Charlie Savage filed a FOIA request to the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) which sought a copy of “all Office of Legal Counsel memorandums analyzing the circumstances under which it would be lawful for the United States armed forces or intelligence community assets to target for killing a United States citizen who is deemed to be a terrorist.”

One thing that this statement doesn’t emphasize is that while al-Awlaki was clearly “radical” in his approach to Islam and rhetoric, there was never a charge or trial that actually proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was a terrorist.

The entire point of the First Amendment is not that it protects your right to discuss last night’s football game, but instead to protect unpopular speech, which is definitely the type of speech which al-Awlaki was engaging in.

However, the despicable nature of what al-Awlaki was promoting does not somehow strip him of his right to a fair trial under the Fifth Amendment, something which is arguably one of the most vital rights protected by the Constitution, which was gravely injured – if not wiped out completely – by the NDAA.

Just 20 days after Savage filed his FOIA request on October 7, 2011 the DOJ denied his request by letter, leading to this last-ditch effort to bring some semblance of accountability to this issue.

The fact that there are memos of some sort is somewhat undeniable; given that on February 3, 2010, the Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair testified to the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that “we take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American citizen, we get specific permission to do that.”

This quote is included in the complaint on page 6, clearly indicating that there is some sort of legal basis or analysis that they have utilized to justify their actions, while refusing to actually account for this to the American people.

I am obviously not the only one who finds this deeply unsettling, especially with the recent traitorous activities in the House and Senate which could result in such actions being taken against countless Americans who “officials have deemed … to be terrorists.”

A noteworthy issue to bring up here is that if al-Awlaki was indeed a terrorist – which again, is unproven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law – the American government has been directly dealing with and supporting terrorists, something which would make anyone involved eligible for indefinite detention under Section 1021 of the NDAA.

Indeed, the fact that al-Awlaki dined at the Pentagon on February 5, 2002, as exposed by – of all news agencies – Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News raises some larger questions about transparency and the so-called War on Terror, which is a total and complete sham.

Keep in mind that by July 2002, al-Awlaki was already under investigation for being sent funds by an individual who was the subject of a U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) investigation and thus al-Awlaki was placed on a precursor to what is now referred to as the terror watch list.

According to ABC News, “A felony arrest warrant for radical Islamic cleric Anwar al Awlaki was rescinded in 2002 a day before he was intercepted as a terror suspect at New York’s JFK airport, forcing authorities to release him, according to sources familiar with the case. The warrant was cancelled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, even though Awlaki was on a terror watch list, and even though the office’s supervising prosecutor for terror cases — who has now been appointed by the Obama administration as the U.S. Attorney in Denver — had been fully briefed on Awlaki’s alleged terror ties, according to investigators.”

al-Awlaki had also been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in both 1999 and 2000, leading one to ask: how could such an individual be invited to dine at the Pentagon?

More importantly, why did the Department of Defense’s lawyer who vetted al-Awlaki write that she “had the privilege of hearing one of Mr. Awlaki’s presentations in November and was impressed by both the extent of his knowledge and by how he communicated that information and handled a hostile element in the audience”?

When Fox News attempted to reach the Office of General Counsel for comment on the meeting along with their vetting process, the Department of Defense claimed they did not have any additional information to provide.

This is where the transparency problem rears its ugly head once again and makes it hard to ignore the intimate ties between our government, which claims to be fighting terrorism, and the terrorists themselves.

The most absurd part is that Obama continues to claim that they are working towards transparency, and even going as far as to laughably criticize Mitt Romney for a lack of transparency.

Part of Obama’s re-election campaign is attempting to trick gullible Americans into thinking he is a populist, which to anyone who has followed his administration closely is simply ludicrous.

According to Talk Radio News, today the Obama for America campaign published a link to an editorial published in The Washington Post which accused Romney of being “zero for two when it comes to transparency in campaigning.”

This is clearly implying that Obama has a history of transparency, which once again is so obviously false it is almost painful to see his campaign continuing to leverage this absurdist claim.

I am far from the only one who has criticized the Obama administration for their lack of transparency.

Indeed, yesterday The Hill published a lengthy article entitled, “Watchdogs say Obama has not done enough on government transparency,” although the headline is a bit of an understatement given that Obama has in many ways made transparency even worse.

They pointed to the so-called “supercommittee” meeting on deficit reduction behind closed doors as a shining example of Obama’s “failing to keep his word on putting Congress’s work before the public.”

They also pointed out that Obama failed to uphold his promise to air healthcare negotiations live on C-SPAN, although I think the issues surrounding assassination of American citizens are much more pressing and dire than both of these examples combined.

“Over the past three years, federal agencies have gone to great efforts to make government more transparent and more accessible than ever, to provide people with information that they can use in their daily lives,” a spokesman for the White House, Eric Shultz, said in a statement.

Yet when it comes to the most critical issues of all, the federal agencies continue to stonewall the American people while still slyly implying that they indeed have the justification and analysis to back up their decisions all while refusing to provide them.

The brazenness of how our so-called government is refusing to account for killing Americans is nothing short of astounding, especially given the most recent developments which very well could label immense amounts of Americans as “belligerent” and thus “covered persons” under the NDAA.

As I have previously mentioned, the problem is not only that the language in the NDAA explicitly allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial on nothing more than suspicion – not to mention the ability to transfer such “covered persons” to any foreign nation or foreign entity they choose – but that we will likely never even know how the DOJ officially interprets the legislation.

This is far from baseless, empty speculation given that back in May Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, revealed, “the government applies a far broader legal interpretation [to the PATRIOT Act] – an interpretation that the government has conveniently classified, so it cannot be publicly assessed or challenged.”

The May Wired article said that the FBI passed the buck on commenting on any secret interpretations of the PATRIOT Act to the DOJ – the same agency which is now refusing to even comment on the existence of memos justifying the assassination of Americans.

Unsurprisingly, the DOJ stated it would not comment beyond a brief testimony before Congress from Todd Hinnen, the agency’s top national security official.

Hinnen’s testimony in no way cleared up exactly what this secret interpretation is and instead seemed much more like damage control.

During the testimony he said that the material they collect under the PATRIOT Act is individualized and specific, including: “driver’s license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and the like.”

Yet Hinnen also stated that the business-record provision of the PATRIOT Act “also” allowed “important and highly sensitive intelligence-collection operations” to be conducted.

This is the typical ambiguous language utilized by government officials to give them the mammoth wiggle-room to covertly abuse legislation and strip us of our rights at every available juncture.

If the American government has any hope of having legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens of the United States, or for that matter, the world at large, transparency needs to be one of the first issued addressed.

We are at a time of crisis in this nation: with economic collapse looming on the horizon thanks to criminals in the financial industry and the corrupt private Federal Reserve; de facto martial law thanks to a steadily militarized police force; the stripping of our most essential rights under the NDAA; comprehensive surveillance programs that include smartphones, centralized biometric databases, drone surveillance, citizen spying programs, and threat assessments; pending draconian internet legislation; dangerous domestic drone programs; and far too many other disturbing trends.

The total lack of transparency in our government is just one of the many symptoms of a disease which is wracking our nation and the world and to make matters even more absurd, for some strange reason our president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Without making this one simple change, likely the easiest thing to demand from our corrupt government, we will only see increasingly disturbing developments that will continue to undermine the foundations of our nation and put all of our lives – and those of future generations – in danger.

Do you have a tip or a story idea? I’d love to hear from you! Please do not hesitate to send me an email at Admin@EndtheLie.com with anything and everything you have to share. I read all of my emails and why I can’t possibly manage to reply to them all, I guarantee I read them all and apply to as many as humanly feasible.

Source: KSAT.com

BANDERA, Texas — The Bandera County Sheriff’s Office issued a warning Thursday to citizens about an anti-government movement known for acts of domestic terrorism.

The law enforcement agency said followers of The Sovereign Citizens Movement have been known to carry out violent acts, including killing law enforcement officers and other public servants.

Watch Tim Gerber’s Report | Read Sheriff’s Office Press Release (PDF)

The sheriff’s office told KSAT-12 News the warning was prompted by the recent shooting death of Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Kenneth Vann.”We have domestic terrorism right at our doorstep,” said Capt. Charlie Hicks of the Bandera County Sheriff’s Office.

Hicks said while there’s no evidence Vann’s death had any links to the Sovereign Citizens, it’s the same type of crime followers are known for.

For example, in last May, a father and his teenage son opened fire on two police officers with an assault rifle during a routine traffic stop in West Memphis, Ark. News reports said the incident was sparked by the suspects’ refusal to present a valid driver’s license. The officers were killed in the shootout and the father and son died in a second shootout with officers a short time later.

“That’s our main concern. Citizen safety and police officer safety in this area,” Hicks said.

According to Hicks, followers of the anti-government, anarchist movement, share the belief that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution has tricked Americans into becoming citizens of the United States and has offered them privileges, such as driver’s licenses and other government benefits, which act as so-called hidden contracts through which Americans effectively have given up their sovereignty.

Read Full Article

In July 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings grilling of Oliver North, the American public got a glimpse of “highly sensitive” emergency planning North had been involved in. Ostensibly North had been handling plans for an emergency response to a nuclear attack (a legitimate concern). But press accounts alleged that the planning was for a more generalized suspension of the constitution at the president’s determination.

As part of its routine Iran-contra coverage, the following exchange was printed in the New York Times, but without journalistic comment or follow-up:

[Congressman Jack] Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

Both North’s attorney and Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democratic Chair of the Committee, responded in a way that showed they were aware of the issue:

Brendan Sullivan [North's counsel, agitatedly]: Mr. Chairman?

[Senator Daniel] Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that?

Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

Inouye: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.[1]

Brooks was responding to a story by Alfonzo Chardy in the Miami Herald. about Oliver North’s involvement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in planning for “Continuity of Government” (COG). According to Chardy, the plans envisaged “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law during a national crisis.”[2]

Reagan had installed at FEMA a counterinsurgency team that he had already assembled as governor of California. The team was headed by Army Col. Louis Giuffrida, who had attracted Reagan’s attention by a paper he had written while at the US Army War College, advocating the forcible warrantless detention of millions of black Americans in concentration camps.“ Reagan first installed Giuffrida as head of the California National Guard, and called on him “to design Operation Cable Splicer. … martial law plans to legitimize the arrest and detention of anti-Vietnam war activists and other political dissidents.”[3] These plans were refined with the assistance of British counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson, who had used massive detention and deportations to deal with the 1950s Communist insurgency in what is now Malaysia.

At the time few people (including myself) attached much importance to the Chardy story about COG. Chardy himself suggested that Reagan’s Attorney General, William French Smith, had intervened to stop the COG plan from being presented to the President, and in 1985 Giuffrida was forced out of office for having spent government money to build a private residence. But COG planning not only continued, it expanded.

Seven years later, in 1994, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that what he called “The Doomsday Project” – the search for “ways to keep the Government running after a sustained nuclear attack on Washington” –had “less than six months to live.”[4]

Weiner’s language was technically correct, but also very misleading. In fact COG planning now simply continued with a new target, terrorism. On the basis of Weiner’s article, the first two books to discuss COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, both reported that COG planning had been abandoned.[5] Recently Tim Shorrock in 2008 repeated that “the COG program was abandoned during the Clinton administration,” and Shirley Anne Warshaw in 2009 wrote that “the Clinton administration… shut down the super-secret Project.”[6] But on this narrow point, all these otherwise excellent and well-informed authors were wrong.

What Weiner and these authors did not report was that in the final months of Reagan’s presidency the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements “after a nuclear war,” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”[7] In this way a totally legitimate program dating back to Eisenhower, of planning extraordinary emergency measures for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, was now converted to confer equivalent secret powers on the White House, for anything it considered an emergency.

This expanded application of COG was apparently envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan,

Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.[8]

In other words, extreme measures, designed originally to deal with an externally directed and devastating nuclear attack, were being secretly modified by a non-governmental group to deal with domestic dissenters: a situation that still pertains today.[9]

The Implementation of COG on 9/11

Clearly 9/11 met the conditions for the implementation of COG measures, and we know for certain that COG plans were implemented on that day in 2001, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 Report confirms this twice, on pages 38 and 326.[10] It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David.[11]

But the implementation of COG went beyond short-term responses, to the installation of what Professor Shirley Anne Warshaw calls a ninety-day alternative “shadow government” outside Washington.

Cheney jumped into action in his bunker beneath the east Wing to ensure continuity in government. He immediately began to create his shadow government by ordering one hundred mid-level executive officials to move to specially designated underground bunkers and stay there twenty-four hours a day. They would not be rotated out, he informed them, for ninety days, since there was evidence, he hinted, that the terrorist organization al-Qa’ida, which had masterminded the attack, had nuclear weapons. The shadow government, as a result, needed to be ready to take over the government from the bunkers.[12]

These ninety days saw the swift implementation of the key features attributed to COG planning by Gelbspan and Chardy in the 1980s:  warrantless detentions, warrantless deportations, and the warrantless eavesdropping that is their logical counterpart. The clearest example was the administration’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.[13] This implemented the central feature of the massive detention exercise, Rex 84, conducted by Louis Giuffrida and Oliver North in 1984.[14]

There was also a flurry of other rapid moves to restructure America’s external and domestic structures – so many that today I can mention only a few. Before doing so I should acknowledge the obvious: that enhanced measures to deal with terrorism are needed, and for some of them we should all be grateful. We should acknowledge also, however, that the most significant achievements against terrorism have been the result of traditional intelligence and police work. As for the War on Terror, the most prominent achievement of Cheney’s ninety days, many experts have asserted that it has created far more terrorists than it has disposed of.

On September 20, 2001, Bush launched the war on terror in a televised address to a joint session of congress, when he said, “Our ‘war on terror’ begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” Today we now have about 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan, to deal with an officially estimated 60 members of Al Qaeda. The predictable result has been an expansion of terrorist activities in Somalia, Yemen, and above all Pakistan.

The war on terror was administratively implemented in three National Security Presidential Directives, NSPDs 7, 8, and 9. All three are classified, and the topics of two of them are unknown. The third, NSPD 9 of October 25, 2001, directed the Secretary of Defense to plan military options against both Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan.[15]

The October date is misleading. A version of the directive calling for covert action in Afghanistan had been approved by principals on September 4, 2001, one week before 9/11.[16] An enhanced plan for military action in Afghanistan, had been approved by Bush on September 17; and the same document “directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq.”[17]

Perhaps the most significant domestic product from Cheney’s trimester mirabilis was the Patriot Act of October 25, 2001. Congress was given only one week to pass this 340-page bill, which in the opinion of researchers “was already written and ready to go long before September 11th.”[18] In 2007 the Justice Department acknowledged that FBI agents had abused the Patriot Act more than 1000 times.

We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal weapons-grade anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators  – Senators Daschle and Leahy – who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition.[19] Someone — we still do not know who – must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance.[20] This is a fact most Americans do not want to think about.

It is generally agreed that, of the three men in National Command Authority on 9/11, Cheney was the ideologue most committed to restoring a presidency that had been weakened by Watergate.[21] Cheney had already declared in his Iran-Contra Minority Report of 1987 his belief that “the Chief Executive will on occasion feel duty bound to assert monarchical notions of prerogative that will permit him to exceed the law.”[22] And as Vice-President Cheney, along with Cheney’s assistant David Addington and Cheney’s appointee John Yoo, established the legal apparatus for declaring that the President had the prerogative power to “deploy military forces preemptively,” and that “the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements against torture ‘do not protect members of the al Qaeda organization.”[23]

By Executive Order 13228 of October 8, 2001, the President established an Office of Homeland Security within the presidential Executive Office. This has engendered in turn the DHS, now the third largest US Cabinet Department, and also a series of Homeland Security Presidential Directives. For example Homeland Security Presidential Directive-6 (HSPD-6) of September 16, 2003, created a Terrorism Screening Center (TSC), to “consolidate the Government’s approach to terrorism screening.”[24]

Since then we have become inured to repeated stories about nonviolent individuals who are prevented from boarding airplanes, because their names are in TSC computers on the No Fly List and the Terrorist Watch List. Senator Ted Kennedy testified in Congress that he had been repeatedly delayed at airports because a “T Kennedy” was on the No Fly List. Until July 2008, Nelson Mandela was also on the list. CBC News in Canada reported in 2008 that “A Quebec businessman whose name is … on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s flight passenger watch list has decided to change his name to avoid lengthy security hassles at the airport.”[25]

In addition to the No Fly List, with 4000 names in 2009 and 8000 today, some people are prevented from flying because they are on the Terrorist Watch List, a much longer list which contained over one million names as of summer 2010. This is why Walter F. Murphy, a noted professor of constitutional law, was detained in 2007 on his journey to lecture, ironically, about his book Constitutional Democracy. According to Professor Murphy, he was asked by an airline employee,

“Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that” ….”I explained,” said Murphy, “that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution.” “That’ll do it,” the man said.[26]

In the end these cases were resolved satisfactorily. But you risk permanent deportation if you have an Arabic-sounding name. The ACLU is suing on behalf of Ayman Latif, not just a U.S. citizen but a disabled U.S. Marine veteran, who under Obama has been stranded in Egypt for months, because, on orders from the U.S. Embassy, he has not been able to board a plane to come home.

This is a real hardship case: Latif told NPR that “because I missed my appointments in the U.S. to be evaluated [as a disabled vet], now the VA administration is saying that they’re going to cut my benefits from what they are now to zero.” On the same program Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security, vigorously defended the No Fly List. But when asked if there is “any legal authority by which the United States can say to a citizen who is abroad, you may not return to this country?” Baker replied, “I know of none.”[27] This did not seem to concern him.

Ayman Latif’s case is far from unique. According to the New York Times,

Advocacy groups say they are trying to help Americans stranded in Yemen, Egypt, Colombia and Croatia, among other countries. At least one American, Raymond Earl Knaeble IV, who studied in Yemen and is now in Colombia, was returned to Colombia by the Mexican authorities after he sought to cross the border into the United States, the groups say.[28]

The Militarization of American Law Enforcement

Another post-9/11 innovation from the Giuffrida-Oliver North COG plans was the militarization of domestic United States law enforcement in 2002, under a new military command, NORTHCOM.[29] Through NORTHCOM the U.S. Army now is engaged with local enforcement in the surveillance and counter-terrorism planning of America, in the same way that through CENTCOM it is engaged with local enforcement to police Iraq. Of course army platoons do not patrol roads and break down the doors of homes, as they do in Iraq or Afghanistan. But behind the scenes, in so-called fusion centers, the military, the FBI, state police, along with private intelligence corporations like SAIC, maintain and analyze data to identify potential threats to those in power.[30]

These fusion centers “have been internally promoted by the US Army as means to avoid restrictions preventing the military from spying on the domestic population.”[31] In other words, administrative arrangements have been used to fulfill Giuffrida’s plans of circumventing the Posse Comitatus Acts on the statute books, without repealing them.

The Proclamation of Permanent Emergencies

Finally, still in the 90-day “shadow government” period after 9/11, President Bush proclaimed two important emergencies that are still in force today.

1) On September 14, 2001, Bush issued Proclamation 7463 (“Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks”) together with Executive Order 13223 (“Ordering the Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces To Active Duty”). As we shall see, the terms of this proclamation were significantly expanded when it was renewed in 2007.

2) “On September 23, 2001, by Executive Order 13224, the President declared a national emergency with respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706).”[32] This gave the president the power to confiscate without trial or warning the property of individuals providing funds to entities, such as charitable foundations, which were judged to be supporting terrorism. The Executive Order initially blocked property of twenty-seven designated terrorists. But the list has become enormous. When I last looked at it, on November 18, 2010, the list included 87 pages just for the letter A.

A lawsuit has been instituted, asserting that the designation of alleged terrorists was arbitrary; and a lower court agreed that the president’s designation authority is unconstitutionally vague.[33] The case is under appeal.

Cheney and Rumsfeld on the Secret Committee to Plan COG

From its beginning in 1982, two of the key planners on the secret COG planning committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the same two men who implemented COG on 9/11.[34] The committee had been established by Reagan under a secret executive order (NSDD 55 of September 14, 1982). Despite what Weiner implied, the committee continued to meet without interruption until the George W. Bush presidency in 2001.[35]

Thus Cheney and Rumsfeld continued their secret planning when Clinton was president; even after both men, both Republicans, were by that time heads of major corporations and not in the government. Moreover, Andrew Cockburn claims that the Clinton administration, according to a Pentagon source, had “no idea what was going on.”

Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million a year in the Clinton era, the vanished Soviets were now replaced by terrorists. . . . There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the “shadow government” had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. . . .“You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on.”[36]

Cockburn’s account requires some qualification. Richard Clarke, a Clinton Democrat, makes it clear that he participated in the COG games in the 1990s and indeed drafted Clinton’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 67 on “Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government.”[37] But COG planning involved different teams for different purposes. It is quite possible that the Pentagon official was describing the Department of Defense team dealing with retaliation.

It is important to understand that the COG “Doomsday Project” in the 1980s involved more than planning and exercises. It also oversaw “Project 908,” the construction of a multibillion infrastructure for an alternative government. The key element of this was an $8 billion communications and logistics program headquartered at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the headquarters for Army Intelligence.[38]

Project 908 attracted the attention of Steve Emerson and other journalists in 1989, when it was revealed that there had been huge cost overruns, double billing for the same work, and eventually destruction of many key contracts documents in the course of an Army investigation. The son of the Army general overseeing the project, former Congressman Rick Renzi, was eventually indicted in 2008 on related charges of extortion, fraud, money laundering and other crimes.[39]

But despite initial failures in the communications network, it was ready to be put into operation and utilized on September 11, 2001 by Vice-President Cheney.[40] Key commands, including the implementation of COG itself, appear to have been made over this highest-classification security network.[41] This may explain why a Boeing E-4B Advanced Airborne Command Post or “Doomsday Plane,” the mobile communications center for the COG shadow government, was seen around 10 AM in the prohibited air space above the White House.[42]

There is no way to determine how many of the constitutional changes since 9/11 can be traced to COG planning. However we do know that new COG planning mea[43]sures were still being introduced in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51/HSPD-20). This Directive set out what FEMA later called “a new vision to ensure the continuity of our Government,” and was followed in August by a new National Continuity Policy Implementation Plan.[44] NSPD-51 also nullified PDD 67, Richard Clarke’s COG directive of a decade earlier; and it referred to new “classified Continuity Annexes” which shall “be protected from unauthorized disclosure.”

Under pressure from his 911truth constituents, Congressman Peter DeFazio of the Homeland Security Committee twice requested to see these Annexes. His request was denied. DeFazio then requested a second time, in a letter signed by the Chair of his committee. The request was denied again.[45]

COG, The National Emergency, and the National Emergencies Act

I mentioned earlier that the Proclamation of a national emergency, issued by Bush on September 14, 2001, and since renewed annually to this day, changed significantly in 2007. All previous annual renewals had enumerated the emergency measures that were being renewed, for example “the measures taken on September 14, 2001, November 16, 2001, and January 16, 2002.” After Bush issued NSPD-51 of 2007, with its “new vision” and its new classified COG Annexes, the next renewal of the Emergency proclamation replaced the previous specific enumerations with a more sweeping general sentence:

Because the terrorist threat continues, the national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, last extended on September 5, 2006, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2007.[46]

“The powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency.” This language is so vague, it is hard to see how it could not cover the “classified continuity annexes” of NSPD-51 as well. If so, the public proclamation was now proclaiming the continuation of a secret. (The two renewals of the Emergency by Barack Obama do not repeat this language from 2007, but likewise fail to enumerate just what powers are being extended.)[47]

The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms that Vice-President Cheney so abhorred, specifies that: “Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).[48] The law does not permit Congress to review an emergency; it requires Congress to review it.

Yet in nine years Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Appeals to the Congress to meet its responsibilities to review COG have fallen on deaf ears, even now that the Congress is dominated by Democrats.[49]

Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly in 2009, both to President Obama to terminate the emergency, and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute.[50] But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 10, 2009,[51] and again a year later.[52] Meanwhile Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations.

One Congressman explained to a constituent that the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would indicate that the constitutional system of checks and balances no longer applies, and also that secret decrees now override public legislation.

Understandably many people tend to repress the extraordinary facts that Cheney and Rumsfeld were able to

1) help plan successfully for constitutional modifications, when not in government, and

2) implement these same changes themselves when back in power.

The first of these facts gives us a glimpse of an on-going power realm independent of the publicly acknowledged state. In the words of James Mann, “Cheney and Rumsfeld were, in a sense, a part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States, inhabitants of a world in which Presidents come and go, but America always keeps on fighting.”[53] A CNN Special Assignment assessment of the COG planners was even more dramatic: ““In the United States of America there is a hidden government about which you know nothing.”[54]

What is the first step out of this current state of affairs, in which the constitution appears to have been superseded by a higher, if less legitimate authority? I submit that it is to get Congress to do what the law requires, and determine whether our present proclamation of emergency “shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).

As part of this procedure, Congress should find whether secret COG powers, never submitted to Congress or seen by it, are among “the powers and authorities” which Bush in 2007 included in his prolongation of the 2001 emergency.

This is not a technical or procedural detail. It is a test of whether the United States continues to be governed by its laws and constitution, or whether, as has been alleged, the laws and constitution have now in places been superseded by COG.

And hopefully Congress would look at the activities of Cheney’s ninety days of COG shadow government in 2001, and their relationship to the genesis of the Patriot Act, the ten-year program for detention camps, and the permanent militarization of US domestic law enforcement.

Peter Dale Scott’s latest book, just out from Rowman & Littlefield, is American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan. His previous books include Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, and The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. His website is http://www.peterdalescott.net.

Notes

[1] New York Times, July 14, 1987. We have never heard if there was or was not an executive session, or if the rest of Congress was ever aware of the matter. According to James Bamford, “The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed. Rather than through legislation, it was created by Top Secret presidential fiat. In fact, Congress would have no role in the new wartime administration. ‘One of the awkward questions we faced,’ said one of the participants, ‘was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack. It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them.’” (James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies [New York: Doubleday, 2004], 74); cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet [New York: Viking, 2004], 145). But key individuals in Congress were, such as Sen. Inouye of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were certainly aware of something.

[2] Miami Herald, July 5, 1987. In October 1984 Jack Anderson reported that FEMA’s plans would “suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively eliminate private property, abolish free enterprise, and generally clamp Americans in a totalitarian vise.”

[3] Diana Reynolds, The Rise of the National Security State: FEMA and the NSC, Political Research Associates, http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/fema/Fema_2.html,Covert Action Information Bulletin, #33 (Winter 1990). “Earlier, Governor Reagan in California had authorized the development of a counterinsurgency plan (known as Cable Splicer) and exercises to deal with such crises, in conjunction with the U.S. Sixth Army and the Pentagon (Operation Garden Plot). The cadres developing Cable Splicer (headed by Louis Giuffrida), were with Reagan’s elevation to the presidency transferred into FEMA. As head of FEMA, Giuffrida pursued plans for massive detention of dissidents; these became so extreme that even Reagan’s attorney general, William French Smith, raised objections” (Scott, The Road to 9/11, 184; citing Gelbspan, Break-ins, 184).

[4] Tim Weiner, New York Times, April 17, 1994.

[5] Bamford, A Pretext for War, 74; cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 138-45.

[6] Tim Shorrock, Spies for hire: the secret world of intelligence outsourcing (New York : Simon & Schuster, 2008)., 78; Shirley Anne Warshaw, The co-presidency of Bush and Cheney (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford Politics and Policy, 2009), 162

[7] The provisions of Executive Order 12656 of Nov. 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 47491, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 585, http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12656.html. The Washington Post (March 1, 2002) later claimed, falsely, that Executive Order 12656 dealt only with “a nuclear attack.” Earlier there was a similar misrepresentation in the New York Times (November 18, 1991).

[9] In stressing the alteration to our present political milieu by an extra-governmental group, I do not intend to exonerate Congress. In 1981 Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act. According to a brilliant and prescient essay written by an Air Force Colonel at the National War College, the Act “was specifically intended to force reluctant military commanders to actively collaborate in police work” (Air Force Lt. Col. Charles E. Dunlap, “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012;” quoted in Harry G. Summers,  The new world strategy : a military policy for America’s future (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 195.[10] 9/11 Commission Report, 38, 326;  Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 228-29.

[11] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11 (Washington: Department of Defense, 2007), 132.

[12] Warshaw, The co-presidency of Bush and Cheney, 164-65; cf. Washington Post, March 1, 2002; Scott, Road to 9/11, 237. Warshaw took the characterization of “shadow government” from earlier reports by U.S. News and World Report in 1989, and CNN in 1991 (Warshaw, 162).

[13] Scott, Road to 9/11, 238, 240-41.

[14] “The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and the imposition of martial rule” (Diana Reynolds, “The Rise of the National Security State: FEMA and the NSC,” Political Research Associates, http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/fema/Fema_3.html, Covert Action Information Bulletin, #33 (Winter 1990).

[15] “NSPD-9: Combating Terrorism,” Federation of American Scientists,” http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-9.htm: “On April 1, 2004, the White House released the following characterization of this otherwise classified document: “The NSPD called on the Secretary of Defense to plan for military options ‘against Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control, air and air defense, ground forces, and logistics.’ The NSPD also called for plans ‘against al Qaeda and associated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control-communications, training, and logistics facilities.’”

[16] “NSPD-9: Combating Terrorism,” Federation of American Scientists,” http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-9.htm; citing testimony of Donald Rumsfeld before 9/11 Commission, March 23, 2304. Cf. Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, 237-38; Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin, 2004), 574-76; 9/11 Commission Report, 212-14. A draft of the presidential directive had originally been circulated in June 2001 (9/11 Commission Report, 208). But the directive approved on September 4 was for covert action only (9/11 Commission Report, 213).

[17] James Bamford, A Pretext for War,  287.

[18] Jennifer Van Bergen, “The USA PATRIOT Act Was Planned Before 9/11,”

Truthout.org, May 20, 2002, http://www.globalissues.org/article/342/the-usa-patriot-act-was-planned-before-911. Van Bergen notes a parallel with the Patriot Act’s predecessor, the Antiterrorism Act of 1996: “James X. Dempsey and David Cole state in their book, ‘Terrorism & the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security,’ that the most troubling provisions of the pre-USAPA anti-terrorism laws, enacted in 1996 and expanded now by the USAPA, ‘were developed long before the bombings [i.e. the Oklahoma bombing of 1995] that triggered their final enactment.’”

[19] Cf. Time, Nov. 26, 2001: “While Daschle, the Senate majority leader, could have been chosen as a representative of all Democrats or of the entire Senate, Leahy is a less obvious choice, most likely targeted for a specific reason. He is head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is involved in issues ranging from antitrust action to antiterror legislation” [emphasis added]. See also Anthony York, “Why Daschle and Leahy?” Salon, November 21, 2001, http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2001/11/21/anthrax/index.html.

[20] We should not forget either that some government experts initially blamed the attacks on Iraq. Much later, referring to Fort Detrick, Salon reporter Glenn Greenwald pointed out that “the same Government lab where the anthrax attacks themselves came from was the same place where the false reports originated that blamed those attacks on Iraq.”

[21] Lew Dubose and Jake Bernstein, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency (New York: Random House, 2006), 28: “Dick Cheney…would spend the rest of his career working to restore the Nixon vision of an all-powerful executive, by undoing the Watergate reforms that came out of the early seventies.”

[22] Schwarz and Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced, 174; emphasis added.

[23] Lew Dubose and Jake Bernstein, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency (New York: Random House, 2006), 187-90; citing John Yoo memos of September 25, 2001 (“deploy”) and January 2002 (“do not protect”).

[24] Department of Justice, “Review of the Terrorist Screening Center,” www.justice.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0527/final.pdf.

[25] “Quebec man changes name to dodge relentless airport screening,” CBC News, September 11, 2008.

[26] Naomi Wolf, “Fascist America,” Guardian (London), April 24, 2007,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment.

[27] “Former U.S. Marine Placed On ‘No Fly’ List, Sues FBI,” NPR, August 5, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129002767. Even my two-year old grandson and his family were taken aside for special questioning at the airport, because of0 his middle name, Yusuf.

[28] Scott Shane, “American Man in Limbo on No-Fly List,” New York Times, June 16, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/world/middleeast/16yemen.html.

[29] U.S. Department of Defense, “U.S. Northern Command,” http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/northcom.htm. Cf. John R. Brinkerhoff, PBS, Online Newshour, 9/27/02: “The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war.” Brinkerhoff had earlier developed the martial law provisions of REX 84 in the Reagan era.

[30] Shorrock, Spies for Hire, 344.

[31] Julian Assange, “The spy who billed me twice,” Wikileaks, http://wikileaks.org/wiki/The_spy_who_billed_me_twice. The March 2009 Army manual “US Army Concept of Operations for Police Intelligence Operations” contains phrases such as “It [fusion] does not have constraints that are emplaced on MI [Military Intelligence] activities within the US, because it operates under the auspice and oversight of the police discipline and standards.”

[32] “Notice-Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism,” Daily Compilation Of Presidential Documents” (“Author: Obama, Barack H”), September 16, 2010, http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201009/2184118701.html.

[33] Humanitarian Law Project v. United States Department of Treasury.

[34] Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 183-87.

[35] Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 142 (order); (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), pp. 59, 71, 102-104, and 158-178 (NSDD 55); Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy (New York: Scribner, 2007), 88 (2001).

[36] Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy (New York: Scribner, 2007), 88.

[37] Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terrorism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 8, 165-75.

[38] Shorrock, Spies for hire,72-75. Warshaw and others have referred to the whole COG operation as “Project 908;” but on the basis of available evidence I believe that Project 908 was the construction program only, as opposed to the planning and exercises which also took place.

[39] Shorrock, Spies for hire, 292-96; Steven Emerson, “America’s Doomsday Project,” U.S. News & World Report, August 7, 1989, 26-31. As of this writing, Rick Renzi’s trial, which was scheduled to begin in March 2010, “has been postponed indefinitely” (Arizona Republic, March 16, 2010, http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/03/16/20100316renzi0316.html). Earlier secrecy had also led to scandalous budget abuses at FEMA, the COG support agency, leading to the forced resignation of FEMA director Louis Giuffrida in September 1985 [

Christopher Cooper and Robert Block. Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the failure of Homeland Security (New York: Times Books, 2006], 54).

[40] See e.g. Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies, 91.

[41] See discussion in Scott, Road to 9/11, 223-36. There were reports that when Bush was airborne in Air force One on 9/11, there were connectivity problems forcing the president to use an ordinary cell phone (Paul Thompson, The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute [NewYork: HarperCollins/Regan Books, 2004], 437). This may help explain why Air Force One eventually flew to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, where the E4-B “Doomsday Planes” are based.

[42] CNN, September 11, 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgF9Fd4UyMY. On the CNN show 9/11 Commission Co-chair Lee Hamilton said he had a vague memory of the mystery plane story, but that it was never discussed by the 9/11 Commission. CNN promptly withdrew its 9/11 E-4B story from its website (“CNN Pulls 9/11 E4B ‘Doomsday’ Plane Video Over White House,” digg, September 13, 2007,

[43]

[44] Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Continuity Directive 1,

fema.gov/pdf/about/offices/fcd1.pdf.

[45] Dennis Kucinich, David Swanson, Elizabeth De La Vega, The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush ([Port Townsend, Wash.] : Feral House, [2008]), 81; Peter Dale Scott, “Congress, the Bush Administration and Continuity of Government Planning: The Showdown,” CounterPunch, March 31, 2008, http://www.counterpunch.org/scott03312008.html.

[46] “Notice: Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Certain Terrorist Attacks,” Federal Register, September 12, 2007, www.uheaa.org/pdfs/PresidentialNotice091207.pdf, emphasis added.

[48] This language overruled the specification in President Ford’s Executive Order 11921 the same year, that, when a state of emergency was declared by the President, Congress could not review the matter for a period of six months.[49] Cf. Peter Dale Scott and Dam Hamburg, “To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!!,” 911Truth.org, March 24, 2009, http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090324183053848).

[50] Peter Dale Scott, “To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!!” (with Dan Hamburg), http.//www.truth.org, March 24, 2009, http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090324183053848#r7.

[51] White House Press Release, September 10, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Notice-of-continuation-from-the-president-regarding-the-emergency-declared-with-respect-to-the-September-11-2001-terrorist-attacks/. A press briefing by Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs the same day did not mention the extension.

[52] White House Press Release, September 10, 2010, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/10/letter-president-continuation-national-emergency-with-respect-certain-terrorist-attacks.

[53] James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 145.

[54] CNN Special Assignment, November 17, 1991.