This website is intended to be an easy-to-read, fully-sourced resource for Congress members, Senators, reporters, and others who wish to discover the current legal status of the United States of America.
On September 11, 2001, the government declared a state of emergency. That declared state of emergency was formally put in writing on 9/14/2001:
"A national emergency exists by reason of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, I hereby declare that the national emergency has existed since September 11, 2001 . . . ."
That declared state of emergency has continued in full force and effect from 9/11 to the present. For example, the White House website states:
"Consistent with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency I declared on September 14, 2001, in Proclamation 7463, with respect to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, the Pentagon, and aboard United Airlines flight 93, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.
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. Therefore, I am continuing in effect for an additional year the national emergency I declared on September 14, 2001, with respect to the terrorist threat."
A separate announcement on the White House website
states:
"Because the actions of these persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States, the national emergency declared on September 23, 2001, and the measures adopted on that date to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 23, 2007. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency with respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism."
See also this.
The Washington Times wrote on September 18, 2001:
"Simply by proclaiming a national emergency on Friday, President Bush activated some 500 dormant legal provisions, including those allowing him to impose censorship and martial law."
Is the Times correct? Well, it is clear that pre-9/11
declarations of national emergency have authorized martial law. For example, as summarized by a
former fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation, and the
recipient of numerous awards, including the Gary Schlarbaum Award for Lifetime Defense of
Liberty, Thomas Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties,
Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty and Templeton Honor Rolls
Award on Education in a Free Society:
In 1973, the Senate created a Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency (subsequently redesignated the Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers) to investigate the matter and to propose reforms. Ascertaining the continued existence of four presidential declarations of national emergency, the Special Committee (U.S. Senate 1973, p. iii) reported:
"These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law. . . . taken together, [they] confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal constitutional processes. Under the powers delegated by these statutes, 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 communications; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens."
(Most or all of the emergency powers referred to by the above-quoted 1973 Senate report
were revoked in the late 1970's by 50 U.S.C. Section 1601. However,
presidents have made numerous declarations of emergency since then, and the declarations
made by President Bush in September 2001 are still in effect).
It is also clear that the White House has kept substantial information concerning its
presidential proclamations and directives hidden from Congress. For example, according to
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy:
Continuity of Government Plans were Implemented for
the United States on 9/11.
Continuity of Government ("COG") measures were implemented on 9/11.
For example, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, at page 38:
"At 9:59, an Air Force lieutenant colonel working in the White House Military Office joined the conference and stated he had just talked to Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. The White House requested (1) the implementation of continuity of government measures, (2) fighter escorts for Air Force One, and (3) a fighter combat air patrol over Washington, D.C."
Likewise, page 326 of the Report states:
"The secretary of defense directed the nation's armed forces to Defense Condition 3, an increased state of military readiness. For the first time in history, all nonemergency civilian aircraft in the United States were grounded, stranding tens of thousands of passengers across the country. Contingency plans for the continuity of government and the evacuation of leaders had been implemented."
The Washington Post states that Vice President Richard Cheney initiated the COG plan on 9/11 (From the bunker, Cheney officially implemented the emergency continuity of government orders . . . .)
See also footnotes cited therein and this
webpage.
Continuity of Government Measures Were Kept in Effect For Several Months, At The Least;
Congress Was Kept In the Dark
CNN reports that -- 6 months later --
Because Bush has decided to leave the operation in place, agencies including the White House and top civilian Cabinet departments have rotated personnel involved, and are discussing ways to staff such a contingency operation under the assumption it will be in place indefinitely, this official said.
Similarly, the Washington Post stated in March 2002 that "the
shadow government has evolved into an indefinite
precaution." The same article goes on to state:
"... assessment of terrorist risks persuaded the White House to remake the program as a permanent feature of 'the new reality, based on what the threat looks like,' a senior decisionmaker said."
As a CBS
article makes clear, virtually none of the Congressional leadership knew that the COG
had been implemented or was still in existence as of March 2002:
Key congressional leaders say they didnt know President Bush had established a shadow government, moving dozens of senior civilian managers to secret underground locations outside Washington to ensure that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital, The Washington Post says in its Saturday editions.
Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) told the Post he had not been informed by the White House about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the Sept. 11 hijackings.
An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he was also unaware of the administration's move.
Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), second in line to succeed the president if he became incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) said they were not sure whether they knew.
Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore, he is in line to become president after the House speaker.
Similarly, the above-cited CNN article states :
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said Friday he can't say much about the plan.
"We have not been informed at all about the role of the shadow government or its whereabouts or what particular responsibilities they have and when they would kick in, but we look forward to work with the administration to get additional information on that."
Indeed, as documented below, the White House has specifically refused to share
information about Continuity of Government plans with the Homeland Security Committee of
the U.S. Congress, even though that Committee has proper security clearance to hear the
full details of all COG plans.
What Are Continuity of Government Plans?
Continuity of government
plans are contingency plans which create a new government in the case of an alleged
threat to the ability of the American government to continue operations. America's COG
plans were created to deal with nuclear war, but they have been discussed in many other
contexts as well.
What would things look like if the COG plans were already being implemented?
- Top leaders of the new government called for in the COG would entirely or
largely go into hiding, and would govern in hidden locations
- Those within the new government would know what was going on. But those in the old government that is, the one created by the framers of the Constitution would not necessarily know the details of what was happening
- Normal laws and legal processes might largely be suspended, or superseded by secretive judicial forums
- The media might be ordered by strict laws punishable by treason to only promote stories authorized by the new government
See this, this and this.
Therefore, COG plans are of vital importance to America, because their implementation
suspends the normal Constitutional form of government, separation of powers, and
traditional American rights.
Has the Government Maintained COG to the Present?
Could the White House have maintained COG operations to the present day? One hint may be
contained in the above-cited CNN
article:
Bush triggered the precautions in the hours after the September 11 strikes, and has
left them in place because of continuing U.S. intelligence suggesting a possible threat.
Concerns that al Qaeda could have gained access to a crude nuclear device "were a major factor" in the president's decision, the official said. "The threat of some form of catastrophic event is the trigger," this official said.
This same official went on to say that the U.S. had no confirmation -- "and no solid evidence" -- that al Qaeda had such a nuclear device and also acknowledged that the "consensus" among top U.S. officials was that the prospect was "quite low."
Still, the officials said Bush and other top White House officials including Cheney were adamant that the government take precautions designed to make sure government functions ranging from civil defense to transportation and agricultural production could be managed in the event Washington was the target of a major strike.
As is apparent from a brief review of the news, the government has, since 9/11,
continuously stated that there is a terrorist threat of a nuclear device or dirty bomb.
That alone infers that COG plans may still be in effect.
In addition, one of the top investigative journalists in the country, Larisa Alexandrovna
(the lead journalist at Raw Story), writing about the 2001 Department of Justice
memorandum that found that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military
operations, wrote:
Alexandrovna not only believes that we have been in a state of emergency since 2001
(which the White House itself has verified, see above), but that the government has been using its emergency powers -- i.e. powers justified by
a state of emergency -- in spying, carrying out military actions inside the U.S. (see this),
and taking other extra-Constitutional actions.
Is that why the government:
- Suspended habeas corpus?
- Has been spying on Americans?
- Is training pastors to preach obedience to martial law?
Are all of these actions based upon a COG form of government?
As one writer notes:
A contemporary version of the Continuity of Government program was put into play in the hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when Vice President Cheney and senior members of Congress were dispersed to "undisclosed locations" to maintain government functions. It was during this emergency period, Hamilton and other former government officials believe, that President Bush may have authorized the NSA to begin actively using the Main Core database for domestic surveillance. One indicator they cite is a statement by Bush in December 2005, after the New York Times had revealed the NSA's warrantless wiretapping, in which he made a rare reference to the emergency program: The Justice Department's legal reviews of the NSA activity, Bush said, were based on "fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government."
Remember also that provisions of the Homegrown Terrorism are already
being implemented, even though the Senate has not yet approved that law (and see this). How could that
happen if COG plans were not in effect?
Additionally, Vice President Cheneys recent claim that his office is not part of the
Executive branch of government may be one more piece of circumstantial evidence that COG
plans are still be in effect, with Cheney a participant in the extra-constitutional
government.
Specifically, last summer, Cheneys office stated that the Vice President's office is not an 'entity within the executive branch. As summarized in Time Magazine:
Vice President Dick Cheney has been resisting even his own Executive Branch's efforts to find out what kind of secret material his office has been stashing away over the last four years.
Cheney's office, according to a story first reported by the Chicago Tribune, has resisted attempts by a tiny federal agency to compile information in accordance with an executive order signed by George Bush himself on the classified documents being held by the Vice President's operation. Cheney's office argued that the Vice President's office, because it has both executive and legislative branch duties, is exempt from the order.
It is, of course, possible that Cheneys response to the request for documents is simply based upon a desire to avoid handing over documents. However, given that Cheney has been instrumental in creating and practicing Continuity of Government plans for 20 years, and the increasingly strong circumstantial evidence that Continuity of Government plans are currently in effect, Cheneys statement that he is not within the Executive branch, and that he is also part of the legislative, may be based on his being a key participant in a COG government. In other words, COG leaders, such as perhaps Cheney, would have key roles not only in the executive, but also the legislative branch, to the extent those branches (separation of powers is apparently not part of the COG plans) even exist. See this.
Presidential Directive NSPD-51
In 2007, President Bush issued Presidential Directive NSPD-51, which purported to change Continuity of Government plans. I have argued elsewhere that issuance of NSPD-51 does not prove that Continuity of Government plans are not in effect currently.
However, even if COG plans are not currently in effect, and were somehow secretly
rescinded between September 2001 and the present despite the continuing declaration of state of emergency,
it is important to note the following:
- NSPD51 was passed without Congressional input
- Indeed, implementation of COG has been continuously hidden from Congress
- Even the New York Times wrote in an editorial:
Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the President may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack, or to any other condition. Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new Presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate.
Indeed, in the summer 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the Homeland Security
Committee (and so with proper security access to be briefed on COG issues), inquired about
continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told
Congress that the entire Homeland Security
Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans
by the White House (video; or here is
the transcript). The Homeland Security Committee has full clearance to view all
information about COG plans. DeFazio concluded: "Maybe the people who think
theres a conspiracy out there are right.
As University of California Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale
Scott has warned:
"If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.
To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority."