Don Allen All FEMA part 4/1010 Feb 92  00:05:00 AREA:HUMAN
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>>>>>======FEMA part 4============================================>>>>>>


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     |                                                                  |
     |                 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     |   terrorist activity within the U.S."[3]  The bill superceded    |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.                                |
     |                                                                  |
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<<<<<<======Continued in FEMA part 5====================================>>>>


Don

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