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)
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