Peter Dale Scott: Cheney-Rumsfeld Surveillance Plans Date Back to 1980s

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. (Emphasis added throughout)

Peter Dale Scott, CounterPunch.org: Congress, the Bush Administration and Continuity of Government Planning – The Showdown

In August 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, a member of the House
Homeland Security Committee, told the House that he and the rest of his
Committee had been barred from reviewing parts of National Security
Presidential Directive 51, the White House supersecret plans to
implement so-called “Continuity of Government” in the event of a mass
terror attack or natural disaster. (1)

Norm Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute,
commented, “I cannot think of one good reason” for denial. Ornstein
added, “I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual,
knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White
House.” (2)

(…)

There is nothing wrong with disaster planning per se. Like all
governments, the U.S. government must develop plans for the worst
contingencies. But Congress has a right to be concerned about
Continuity of Government (COG) plans refined by Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld over the past quarter century, which journalists have
described as involving suspension of the constitution. (3)

(…)

URL: http://www.counterpunch.org/scott03312008.html

En god mulighet til å lese seg opp på den oppsiktsvekkende “kokainfly”-historien.

Just say no!

***

Bill Conroy, The NarcoSphere: Cocaine planes make a “Bogotá Connection”

Federal Aviation Administration records obtained recently by Narco News offer some razor sharp evidence that a fat line of connections in the ongoing cocaine plane mystery leads right back to the nose of the U.S. government.

(…)

Past Stories in Cocaine Planes Series:

• U.S. Cocaine-Plane Invasion Spooking Latin America

• Narco News Investigation: Cocaine Planes Cross Paths with Corporate America’s Green Movement

• Third Cocaine Plane Surfaces and is Tied to Web of Government Connections

• Cocaine Jet Crash in Mexico Linked to Narco-Trafficker Who Worked for U.S. Government

• Jet Case Colored with Shades of Iran/Contra and “House of Death”

• Cocaine Jet That Crashed in Mexico Part of Cowboy Government Operation, DEA Sources Claim

• New Document Provides Further Evidence That Owner of Crashed Cocaine Jet Was a U.S. Government Operative

• Mysterious Jet Crash Is Rare Portal Into the “Dark Alliances” of the Drug War

“I do believe that international public opinion, when it
becomes powerful enough, will become the most effective restraint to
the excesses and follies of particular governments.”

– Peter Dale Scott

Gammel, men …

***

John Judge: Asking the Wrong Question

(…)

They have spent $13 trillion tax dollars since the end of
WWII on this military/intelligence complex, and it cannot protect its
own headquarters?

It can track every electronic communication on earth, crack the
codes of the Al Quaeda in advance of 9-11, locate bin Laden’s cell
phone, but it can’t decipher what it all means?

And beyond that question is the more pertinent one hardly anyone is asking.

• Bush clearly and undeniably had advance knowledge of a terrorist
  attack on US soil using planes as weapons by 9:05 am on September 11.
• NORAD had it by 8:45 in an unprecedented simultaneous hijacking of four planes.
• The Pentagon had it, as did everyone in DC by 9:05 as well.
• The Pentagon began to evacuate the building, as did the White House and Capitol.
• EVERYONE had advance knowledge of Flight 77 coming towards DC for 40 minutes.

(…)