I've around long enough to see some of these things cycle through our political life. Sometimes they pass with the administration and sometimes they get worse.
During the Viet Nam area, demonstrators in Berkeley were loaded on to buses and hauled off to barracks facilities in the Berkeley Hills. They were held as long as the law allowed with out being charged and released. It served to brake up the demonstrations and wasn't illegal but certainly interfered with our 1st amendment rights. I know that similar things happened in other parts of the country. But the war ended and these things went away, or did they?
During the Iran-Contra debacle "our" government had another go at us with the notorious Rex-84 plan.
Jimmy Carter had unified several disaster agencies into the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1997. But under Reagen's tenure the focus of FEMA became "national security"(that wonderful excuse for anything un-American). Rex-84 was a plan to be operated in conjunction with the Pentagon to test wartime crisis readiness by simulating the roundup o 400,000 fictional "aliens" and detaining them in military camps throughout the U>S> These "aliens" were supposed to be refugees coming over the Mexican border if the US invaded Nicaragua. However, critics and protesters at the time believed that Rex-84 was actually a simulation to practice rounding up large numbers of Americans, including protesters, Sanctuary workers and others, if the government did invade Nicaragua.
In addition to Rex-84 the "Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff put together a document, called the Defense Resources Act, which gave the military power to proclaim martial law in times of crisis and take over local policing and even run the courts despite the The Posse Comitatus Act which forbids the military form operating in the United States. The document gave the President near dictatorial powers, including authority to censer communications, ban antigovernment strikes, nationalize industry, seize private property for "the national defense", and authorize loyalty oaths to the state. The plan was to shelve the Defense Resources Act document until a time of crises and present it to a distracted Congress for speedy approval. This would lead to a presidential order putting FEMA in charge of all government agencies.
FEMA's power grab was cut short shortly after the Rex-84 drills when Attorney General William French Smith became alarmed enough to contact Robert McFarland. Smith warned that FEMA was attempting to anoint itself "emergency czar" with a broad definition of crisis, which included routine domestic law emergencies.
Thus ended FEMA's plans for the presidential executive order to allow FEMA o control the United States." (From FEMA's Dark History).
Sound familiar?
Now jump forward to the present. Demonstrators are being arrested and observed with dragonfly spy cameras. Demonstrators were arrested in September for holding a press conference at the Capital. AND - in 2006 the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary for build temporary immigration centers. The centers would be built for "an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a national disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space" according to a company executive. This is in addition to a similar contract awarded from 2000 to 2005.(Rachel L.Swarns, New York Times, Feb.4, 2006)
The Bush administration has also set its self up with "near-dictatorial" powers. On May 9, 2007 President Bush signed the National Security and Homeland Security Directives NSPD 51 and 20. The Directive centralizes the control of the country in any kind of emergency and the emergency is defined by the President. All powers of FEMA, The Homeland Security Department and "all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organization to continue functioning will under the president's directives in event of a national emergency." If we already have the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security why do we need this? (See Corsi article at wnd.commentary, May 23)
The whole structure is under the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. The person who holds that job, Frances Townsend, just resigned by the way. Be interesting to see who replaces her.
There is a National Emergency Act that gives the president broad powers but he has to clear them with Congress first. The new Directive seems to side step this act by renaming the process and using organizational criteria, not a new strategy for the Bush Executive Orders and Presidential directives. This new Directive has not Congressional oversight and I wonder if it is even Constitutional.
So where are we now: private armies, questionable government prisons and now near dictatorial powers that con be assumed by the president. We cannot get rid of this sort of monarchial use of presidential power unless we impeach the president and it needs to be done now!!!