Cheney-Rumsfeld Surveillance Plans Date Back to 1980s

[struggle4progress]

New America Media, Commentary/Analysis, Peter Dale Scott, Jan 03, 2006

... But there are reasons to suspect that the illegal eavesdropping, and the related program of illegal detentions of U.S. citizens as well as foreign nationals, began earlier. Both may be part of what Vice President Dick Cheney has called the Bush administration's restoration of "the legitimate authority of the presidency" -- practices exercised by Nixon that were outlawed after Watergate.

In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed just such emergency surveillance and detention powers in a super-secret program that planned for what was euphemistically called "Continuity of Government" (COG) in the event of a nuclear disaster.

At the time, Cheney was a Wyoming congressman, while Rumsfeld, who had been defense secretary under President Ford, was a businessman and CEO of the drug company G.D. Searle. Overall responsibility for the program had been assigned to Vice President George H.W. Bush, "with Lt. Col. Oliver North...as the National Security Council action officer," according to James Bamford in his book, "A Pretext for War."

These men planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any "national security emergency," which they defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: "Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States." Clearly 9/11 would meet this definition ...


http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=979bc356fbfc082be8930f269e2bde50

Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988

[Ezlivin]

1. What do you get when you mix "Left Behind" with PNAC?

We all end up getting left behind.

Face it, these people think that "1984" is an owner's manual.