Every
president since FDR has drawn up such plans. The most notorious were
Nixon's "Operation Garden Plot" and Reagan's "REX 84 Alpha"—a legacy we
recalled
when the Homeland Security Act passed in 2002. This latest incarnation
has gone unnoticed by the New York Times and other major media. Leave
it to the editorial page of Tennessee's Chattanoogan,
May 24:
Bush Makes Power Grab
President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9
signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office
of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the
president.
The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential
Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National
Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security
Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new
National Continuity Coordinator.
That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for
"National
Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and
tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue
functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national
emergency.
The directive loosely defines "catastrophic emergency" as "any
incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels
of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S.
population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government
functions."
When the President determines a catastrophic emergency has
occurred,
the President can take over all government functions and direct all
private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency
with an "enduring constitutional government."
Translated into layman's terms, when the President determines a
national emergency has occurred, the President can declare to the
office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct
any and all government and business activities until the emergency is
declared over.
Ironically, the directive sees no contradiction in the
assumption of
dictatorial powers by the President with the goal of maintaining
constitutional continuity through an emergency.
The directive specifies that the assistant to the President for
Homeland Security and Counterterrorism will be designated as the
National Continuity Coordinator. Further established is a Continuity
Policy Coordination Committee, chaired by a senior director from the
Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity
Coordinator, to be "the main day-to-day forum for such policy
coordination."
Currently, the assistant to the president for Homeland Security
and
Counterterrorism is Frances Fragos Townsend. Townsend spent 13 years at
the Justice Department before moving to the U.S. Coast Guard where she
served as assistant commandant for intelligence. She is a White House
staff member in the executive office of the president who also chairs
the Homeland Security Council, which as a counterpart to the National
Security Council reports directly to the president.
The directive issued May 9 makes no attempt to reconcile the
powers
created there for the National Continuity Coordinator with the National
Emergency Act. As specified by U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 34,
Subchapter II, Section 1621, the National Emergency Act allows that the
president may declare a national emergency but requires that such
proclamation "shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and
published in the Federal Register."
A Congressional Research Service study notes that under the
National
Emergency Act, the President "may seize property, organize and control
the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces
abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and
communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict
travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States
citizens."
The CRS study notes that the National Emergency Act sets up
congress
as a balance empowered to "modify, rescind, or render dormant such
delegated emergency authority," if Congress believes the president has
acted inappropriately.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 appears to supersede the National Emergency Act
by
creating the new position of National Continuity Coordinator without
any specific act of Congress authorizing the position.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 also makes no reference whatsoever to Congress.
The
language of the May 9 directive appears to negate any a requirement
that the President submit to Congress a determination that a national
emergency exists, suggesting instead that the powers of the executive
order can be implemented without any congressional approval or
oversight.
Homeland Security spokesperson Russ Knocke affirmed that the
Homeland Security Department will be implementing the requirements of
NSPD-51/HSPD-20 under Townsend's direction.
The White House had no comment.
While we're skeptical Bush will have the cojones to pull this off,
NSPD-51 is particularly ominous in light of the draconian provisions of
the 2007
National Defense Authorization Act.
