Who Will Rule Us After the Next 9/11?The reality of NSPD-51 is almost as bad as the paranoia.
Posted Friday, Oct. 19, 2007, at 2:23 PM ET
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponConservative activist Jerome Corsi and Marjorie Cohn of the [left wing] National Lawyers Guild have interpreted this as a break from Constitutional law in that the three branches of government are equal, with no single branch coordinating the others. … The directive does not specify whose responsibility it would be to either declare a catastrophic emergency or declare it over.
Good point. And then there are the final two provisions of the NSPD, which mysteriously refer to unseen secret "annexes" to the directive. Needless to say, if what they've made public is so shameless in its disregard for the Constitution, the following two sections on secret provisions don't allay suspicion:
(23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive.
(24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.
So, how many secret annexes are there in addition to "annex A," and what kinds of things do they say that even the paranoia-inducing public document can't include?
Here's where Jeff Kosseff of the Portland Oregonian comes in. In an e-mail to me, he said he believed he was the first mainstream media reporter to pursue the classified annex issue (although Charles Savage reported on the disturbing public aspects of the directive itself in the Boston Globe in May).
Kosseff told me he got onto the story when Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio expressed puzzlement that he was having trouble seeing what was in the classified "annexes." DeFazio was a member of the homeland security committee and cleared to read classified material in a supersecure "bubble room" designed to prevent any kind of surveillance. But DeFazio's initial request was, as Kosseff reported, "denied" by the White House, which cited national security concerns.
DeFazio said this was the first time he had been denied access to classified documents. He brought in the chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Bennie Thompson, and the chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Investigation and Oversight, Chris Carney, to back his request for access to the classified annexes.
In a phone conversation, Jeff Kosseff told me the latest development. In August, these requests were denied as well. On grounds of "national security."
I don't want to be alarmist, I have no evidence there's a coup brewing. But I think the American people and their congressional reps deserve some say in how they will be ruled when the ordinary rules go out the window in a national emergency. For one thing, what will happen to the Bill of Rights' guarantees of individual liberty and the courts that are supposed to enforce them?
If you ask me, setting aside any paranoid fantasies, it is clear on the most basic level—read it yourself—that NSPD-51 is the creation of irresponsible incompetents, bulls in the china shop of our constitutional framework. It is a recipe for disaster. For a catastrophe of governance that would match whatever physical catastrophe it followed and threaten the re-establishment of constitutional democracy. It would make the partisan warfare over the 2000 election in Florida seem like child's play. We might recover from a disaster but we might never recover from the "continuity coordination" that followed, "coordination" that could forever undermine any faith in the actual continuity of constitutional liberty in America since it would put it at the mercy of any president who wants to "coordinate continuity" rather than govern legally.
I think it's urgent that we bring these questions out of the shadows of phony comity. I'd urge readers to call or e-mail their members of Congress and senators now. Call for an emergency joint congressional hearing to end this farce, give us some transparency about what our government will do if we suffer another 9/11. Let all branches of government participate in the attempt to reach some consensus on rational and effective continuity planning. Something more specific and sophisticated than the clumsy but dangerously Orwellian "Continuity Coordination Committee."
Happy Birthday, Smokey Bear
Are Gas Grills More Eco-Friendly Than Charcoal Ones?
He-Man: Briefs of Rage and Other Toy-Inspired Movies We're Dying To See
Kaus: Seven Possible Theories Explaining Palin's Resignation
The U.S. Embassy in Djibouti Cordially Invites You to a Fourth of July Cookout
The Week's Best Editorial Cartoons
Remarks from the Fray:
If the president hadn't already invaded a country, selectively suspended due process, underhandedly engaged in torture, and generally pushed at the edges of the constitution in an attempt to expand executive power, then this would seem like normal document.
Actually, its existence answers the question raised by the author - who would coordinate the reinstitution of the electoral process in the event of catastrophe? The answer, regrettable only by the merit of the administration currently in power, is the President.
On paper this does make sense. The executive branch should be the branch to coordinate such a recovery, because constitutionally, the executive branch is the only branch that can actively "coordinate" anything. If you imagine such an emergency unfolding under say, Eisenhower, Clinton, or maybe even Reagan, it doesn't sound so gloomy. It sounds like a plan - the only force in the country capable of stepping up does so. Who else?
The picture is only scary because of who el presidente is currently.
--jwschmidt
(To reply, click here.)
People need to keep perspective. It's a policy directive. It has no weight as law. They can talk about how they want to run things, but if any president tried to whip this out as How It's Going To Be (TM), the other two branches of government would, at best, flip him off and then get on with trying to salvage things.
I'm not going to worry about this until I start seeing evidence that our military, or at least our domestic (federal and state/local) police forces are on board. If the president can't enforce his will through one of those groups, this remains a pipedream for a wannabe king.
--kinglyam
(To reply, click here.)
This is really just a written explanation of what would happen if there were a sufficiently awful disaster. It's hard to imagine a President who wouldn't take extraordinary, and at least arguably extralegal, measures in circumstances where there was a real loss of government continuity, like a bomb destroying the Capitol while the House and Senate were in session. In other words, this is just a planning document, and probably actually just a more formal version of a memo that's been kicking around the White House since the Soviet Union got the atomic bomb. Having it out in the open actually is a little bit reassuring.
In context, the "comity" language reads to me like an explicit recognition that the other branches are co-equal. The President's job under that language is to coordinate, not to run everything.
That said, I do find the Administration's resistance to showing the classified appendices to the people who have oversight over those issues more than a little creepy. I am aware that it's always been the executive's view that Congress is leakier than a sieve, particularly as to really interesting stuff, but in the past that's never led to wholesale denial of access. This is, if anything, worse than the way the NSA programs were treated, and it has to make you wonder what exactly has to be hidden so well. Unless it's the launch codes for nuclear weapons, there's no reason I can think of to deny access completely.
--randy-khan
(To reply, click here.)
The first problem W would face as self-declared fuhrer would be regional loyalty. He could quickly find himself dictator of the red-state south, the rest of the country effectively being self-governed at the state level. Keep in mind that W's approval ratings are at historic lows. Whatever comity he can expect from the lobbyist-owned congress and hack-judiciary will not necessarily be matched by the people. After a coup, in the face of massive popular outrage, who is to say the governors of Washington, or California, or Massachusetts, or Minnesota will take orders from DC?
NSPD-51 and annexes come formally from the Bush White House, but essentially all the beltway players are on board (as with warrantless surveillance and every other partial erasure of the constitution already accomplished), along with the corporate media. Hence what Rosenbaum as observed: not a peep from Congress, the media, or the think tank crowd.
That is where the national military comes in, of course. Notice that all the leading Democrat presidential candidates are all lined up lock-step behind the idea that our military needs to be larger by 100,000 troops. America faces no credible military threats from anywhere. Our historic commitments to defend South Korea and western Europe from land invasion are looking a little stale.
These are the same troops who can pull a Haditha and later say with a straight face they did nothing wrong. If martial law comes down on America, it will be like Argentina in the 1970s, and alas too late to state the obvious -- we made a mistake putting these people in power.
It's a paradox, and incorrect to say, but true: our armed forces don't fight for our freedom any more. They imperil it. What we desperately need is 100,000 fewer troops. Then you could be sure the beltway crowd won't bother with a coup.
--proxywar
(To reply, click here.)
(10/21)