Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
Eighties Surveillance Revival
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Debate Continues, but There's Little Doubt Speculators Are Adding to Pain at the Pumps
Thomas Palley
Democracy and Elections:
Seven Ways Your Vote Might Not Count This November
Steven Rosenfeld
DrugReporter:
'The Dope Craze That's Terrorizing Vancouver'
Lani Russwarm
Election 2008:
An Ex-Beauty Queen for VP: Political Risk or Political Genius?
Heather Gehlert
Environment:
Palin Is a Global-Warming-Denying, Polar-Bear-Dissing, Pat Buchanan Acolyte
Joseph Romm
ForeignPolicy:
Bush Is Pouring Gas on Afghanistan's Bonfire
Chris Hedges
Health and Wellness:
Universal Health Coverage Is No Silver Bullet
Niko Karvounis
Hurricane Katrina:
From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished
Amy Goodman
Immigration:
Immigration: Too Hot for the Dems?
Roberto Lovato
Media and Technology:
How the Media's Tarring of Hillary Hurt Obama Too
Eric Boehlert
Movie Mix:
Hollywood Gets Muslims Wrong, Again
Wajahat Ali
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Americans' Attitudes Toward Breastfeeding Are Making Our Kids Sick
Aisha Qaasim
Rights and Liberties:
Reconstruction After Katrina: Brazen Housing Discrimination Continues
Lizzy Ratner
Sex and Relationships:
Yet Another Obscenity Trial? We Should Be Ashamed
Dr. Marty Klein
War on Iraq:
Sadr Announces Suspension of Mahdi Army "Indefinitely"
Water:
Alaska Chooses Largest Gold Mine Over Clean Water
Kari Lydersen
Revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has engaged in warrantless eavesdropping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act prompted President Bush to admit last month that in 2002 he directly authorized the activity in the wake of 9/11.
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.
As developed in the mid-1980s by Oliver North in the White House, the plans called for not just the surveillance but the potential detention of large numbers of American citizens. During the Iran-Contra hearings, North was asked about his work on "a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution." The chairman, Democratic Senator Inouye, ruled that this was a "highly sensitive and classified" matter, not to be dealt with in an open hearing.
The supporting agency for the planning and implementation was the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA was headed for much of the 1980s by Louis Giuffrida, whose COG plans for massive detention became so extreme that even President Reagan's then Attorney General, William French Smith, raised objections.
Smith eventually left Washington, while COG continued to evolve. And in May 2001 Cheney and FEMA were reunited: President George W. Bush appointed Cheney to head a terrorism task force and created a new office within FEMA to assist him. In effect, Bush was authorizing a resumption of the kind of planning that Cheney and FEMA had conducted under the heading of COG.
Peter Dale Scott is author of "Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003) and is completing a book on "Deep Politics and the Road to 9/11."
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »