Continuity of Government

What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike. (Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg, "Rule by Fear or Rule by Law?" San Francisco Chronicle, February 4, 2008; Page B-7)

Training under [U.S. Army Field Manual] FM 19-15/Garden Plot must be "continuous" and "must develop personnel who are able to perform distasteful and dangerous duties with discipline and objectivity." Dangerous to the local citizenry given that "every member of the control force must be trained to use his weapon and special equipment (including) riot batons, riot control agent dispersers and CS grenades, grenade launchers, shotguns, sniper rifles, cameras, portable videotape recorders, portable public address systems, night illumination devices, fire fighting apparatus, grappling hooks, ladders, ropes, bulldozers, Army aircraft, armored personnel carriers, and roadblock and barricade materials." (Frank Morales, "U.S. Military Civil Disturbance Planning: The War at Home," in Police State America, ed. Tom Burghardt, ATS/Solidarity, Toronto, Montreal, 2002, p. 73)

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law." ...

The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the cover of a trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration. ...

The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact. (Frank Morales, "Bush Moves Toward Martial Law," Toward Freedom, October 26, 2006)

In the absence of massive public opposition to existing martial law plans by the Bush regime or future U.S. administrations--Democratic as well as Republican--the prospect of America continuing as a free and open society is a mirage at best.