Continuity of Governance program: Is your name in the Main Core?

Big expose from Radar Magazine – or as much of an expose it can be when it relies mostly on anonymous sources. It starts out by focussing on former acting AG James Comey and his refusal to sign off on the warrantless wiretapping program while John Ashcroft was incapacitated in the hospital. But who cares very much about that? They’re only wiretapping suspected terrorists, right? However, it may have broader implications.

Issues for debate:

  1. Is this for real? (Anonymous sources and all that.)

  2. Will any of this matter before Bush leaves office?

  3. Will the next POTUS or Congress change anything about it?

  4. If not – do you think an administration of either party can be trusted with this kind of power?

  5. Is it constitutional?

  6. Is it necessary?

  1. Given the paranoia and secretiveness of the Bush Administration since 9-11, I really wouldn’t be surprised if it is, but I don’t know.

  2. Very likely not.

  3. Again, very likely not. The U.S. Government has been considering doomsday scenarios at least since the Eisenhower Administration. Most such plans sit on a shelf somewhere at the White House, the Pentagon or FEMA and are never taken very seriously, let alone implemented. This one, if accurately described, is no more likely to ever see the light of day than any other.

  4. What choice will we have? From Lincoln and the suspension of habeas corpus, to Wilson and the Palmer Raids, to FDR and the internment of Japanese-Americans, to Bush and his many near-royal assertions of presidential power, chief executives of all parties have done what they thought they had to in times of (real or perceived) grave national emergency.

  5. Probably not, but Congress and the Federal courts are unlikely to say so unless and until the crisis passes.

  6. Something like it probably is in this day and age, but the law’s protections are timeless, and meant for both war and peace. I strongly believe that it’s possible to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” as the President and all other public officials of all levels of government - Federal, state and local - while ensuing that the United States will prevail and endure in any future crisis. We just need public officials who share that outlook, and who insist that what-if plans drawn up by the national security bureaucracy fully reflect it.

Oh, it goes back a lot further than that!

Added missing phrase.

This is nuts.

Congress and the courts aren’t advisers, even in emergencies. They are coequal branches, and they each have independent continuity of government plans that do not depend on the executive branch for their authority. The most that happens is that the plans are coordinated in important ways - communications are maintained between branches, for instance.

Not to mention the fact that states and municipalities are involved here as well, and have developed contingency plans and emergency operations centers of their own.

Even in a general emergency with evacuations, imposition of curfews and such, it would be impossible for the federal government to take over the whole shebang. The local and state authorities would still have a role to play.

Hell, the Feds couldn’t evacuate New Orleans by themselves, and you think they can take over the whole country? I’m amazed you have this kind of faith in our government.

Cite?

Here.

You freaked out about this whole thing at least once before. It was just as bogus a claim then as now.

And really, think about it. If you were the Congress, wouldn’t you make damn sure you set up your own emergency plan? You wouldn’t depend on the executive branch for that, would you?

I had forgotten all about that thread. Made me laugh reading back through some of that stuff.

BTW, Bush is still not king…but there is still time I guess. You never know…

-XT

The New Thing here is the previously unreported existence of the “Main Core.”

The only thing that would turn this country into a police state is if every time the President ordered something, everyone just did it regardless of what that order was.

The President can’t become dictator by announcing on the radio that he’s now the dictator, the rest of us have to go along with it. The cops have to go along, the national guards have to go along, the state governments have to go along, the army and the navy and the marines and the air force and the coast guard have to go along, the local governments have to go along, the newspapers and TV and internet providers have to go along, the judges have to go along, the prison guards have to go along, the prosecutors have to go along, the business leaders have to go along, and the American people have to go along.

If the American people decide they want fascism, well, then it doesn’t matter what’s written down on that scrap of paper labeled “The Constitution”.

As for the existance of a “Main Core” database of 8 million potentially subversive Americans–isn’t a database of that size pretty much useless? What good is it? If that many people are considered “subversive” then it really means no one is.

The Greenbriar is a museum now, but hopefully there’s another shelter set up for Congress.

In the event of a true doomsday scenario, I think the People in Charge would consider it necessary to assert martial law, regardless of the legality or even morality of doing so. This prospect doesn’t worry me much because true doomsday scenarios are unlikely to occur, and if the world really were coming to an end the behavior of government would not be the biggest problem at hand.

The only thing that worries me is that certain leaders might jump the gun and suspend the Constitution in the event of a much smaller emergency. The hypothetical disaster described in the OP’s article–

–doesn’t even begin to justify imposing dictatorial rule on a continent-wide nation of hundreds of millions of people, especially if the enemy is something as small and limited as a terrorist group.

And as for the “Main Core”, I am bothered less by the idea that they would use it than by the idea that they are compiling it at all. An excuse to impose martial law may never arise, but the idea that the government should compile huge lists of “untrustworthy” citizens is likely to filter through the bureaucracy and inspire Nixonish behavior by those in power.

Well, how could one find out if she’s Main Core or not? A Catch-22 in the Freedom Of Information Act has been: If you ask to see your FBI file, and you don’t have one, you’ve got one now.