Scary Stuff Part II
Late last year I wrote about the danger presented by National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20 which gives the president the power to cancel elections if the country is in a state of catastrophic emergency and then goes on to define catastrophic emergency so loosely that almost anything more than Bush stubbing his toe would qualify
any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.
Digby today reveals another very scary development. As if wasn’t bad enough now the FBI is getting businesses involved in a shadowy organization called whose purpose it seems is to spy on individuals, protect national infrastructure in an emergency (there’s that word again) and provide information to the government. A Corporate TIPS program as it were. Read the whole article at Alternet but here (to me) is the really scary stuff
On May 9, 2007, George Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 entitled “National Continuity Policy.” In it, he instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security to coordinate with “private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.”
Asked if the InfraGard National Members Alliance was involved with these plans, Schneck said it was “not directly participating at this point.” Hershman, chairman of the group’s advisory board, however, said that it was.
InfraGard members, sometimes hundreds at a time, have been used in “national emergency preparation drills,” Schneck acknowledges.
“In case something happens, everybody is ready,” says Norm Arendt, the head of the Madison, Wisconsin, chapter of InfraGard, and the safety director for the consulting firm Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc. “There’s been lots of discussions about what happens under an emergency.”
One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation — and what their role might be. He showed me his InfraGard card, with his name and e-mail address on the front, along with the InfraGard logo and its slogan, “Partnership for Protection.” On the back of the card were the emergency numbers that Schneck mentioned.
This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out. But that’s not all.
“Then they said when — not if – martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.
So, as I left in a comment at Digby’s, combine Infraguard with the Bush issued National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive / from last May, and the of 2007 which by revising the restrictions contained in and the (18 U.S.C.1385) gave Bush new powers for deploying US troops on US soil, including the power to over rule governors and deploy National Guard troops in their states, and Now combine all of that with the which legalizes the detention, rendition and torture of anyone the administration declares a terrorist suspect, and you have a coup in the making. All it requires is a simple act of terrorism on US soil (like that couldn’t be arranged easily enough) and you won’t be having any election come November or likely ever again.
You can be blind, close your eyes and say it’s all paranoia, it’s all a co-incidence, or you can be vigilant, inform others and make certain the government knows that you are watching them (because you can be fairly certain they are watching you). Which will YOU choose to do?
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Time: 5/21/2008, 10:21 pm
[...] Kline, then read Main Core over at Digby’s and my comment on that post which encapsulated what I wrote about this past February. Think Bush et. al. would not be up to going this route? Don’t bank on [...]