Cheney-Rumsfeld Surveillance Plans Date Back to 1980s

[sabra]

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=01-06-06&storyID=23155

News Analysis: Cheney-Rumsfeld Surveillance Plans Date Back to 1980s, By: Peter Dale Scott (Pacific News Service)


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.

[texpatriot2004]

1. Sick evil bastards! nm

[sabra]

2. another coincidence that they got a “national security emergency”

as soon as they gained office?

[Free the Press]

3. um, is that the "law" the * is complying with today?

[sabra]

5. you mean by destroying the Constitution?

[MissMillie]

4. Ya know, I hate Executive Orders

I think they blatantly go against the promise of checks and balances our Constitution was designed to provide.

[SoCalDem]

6. We are paying dearly for not properly handling Iran-Contra

These creeps would have been locked up, had the dems back then not gone "easy' on them. Poppy would have never been president....Lots of dead people would still be alive..

Going easy on criminals always has consequences later on.

[Me.]

7. As I Said In Another Thread

One might suspect people have certainly been reading DU as H20Man has done several in-depth thread on Cheney/Rumsfeld's plans which go back to even before the 80's and start with Nixon.