Rule by fear or rule by law? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/04/ED5OUPQJ7.DTL Excerpt Wake up. The Democrats aren't going to fix this. It's an establishment issue, not a Bush issue.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html You should actually read about this directive, it does not grant absolute power. Do you even know some of the directives that were issued during the cold war? They blow this one directly out of the water. This is to replace http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd/pdd-67.htm
I'd like to see this from a reliable source, rather than on an opinion page. The detention centers in nearly every state and thousands of rail cars under construction seems a bit far-fetched. If true, it looks like the process started in 1999 under Clinton. I got a kick out of Churchill's quote: "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." This was written while the Democrats in power were tossing both Japanese and German US citizens in detention camps without any reasonable suspicion of malicious activities, legal recourse or due process. It appears that the President has always had the power to do that. This sounds like a reinforcement. Mayors and governors have always been able to declare martial law and governors declare military. I grew up in Chicago in the 1960s when Democrat Mayor Daley gave a "shoot on sight" directive to police to contain violence during the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots. The military was called in for several riots during the 1960s.
@ssandecki - Congress has been denied access to the documents by the White House. What you are referencing is a press release. The representatives of the people are not privy to the President's plan for continuity. As far as the President's powers, anyone read the Constitution lately? Finally, an inquisitive response.
I don't know. Did anyone read it during WWII? The Constitution was stomped into the ground and very few people complained because there are some things that just have to be done during a time of war. The Constitution doesn't offer answers to everything. I still find it hard to believe that this plan crossed over at least two administrations and details have not been revealed. The US government is one huge sieve. It's hard to keep anything a secret. If it is real and a critically important plan, I can see why it is not being revealed to Congress. Reveal it to members of Congress one day under an agreement of strict secrecy, and tomorrow it will be on the front page of the New York Times or Washington Post.
So you condone a plan, for an absolute crisis situation, which deals with the continuity of government, being a secret from people with top level clearance? How does the Executive branch end up with higher level clearance than the Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security? Who runs this country? All we need is another false flag, and it's game over. The President will institute a plan, without authorization, without permission and without oversight.
This sounds like a plan for a full-scale crisis situation. I'm fully confident that I will not be on the train to a detention camp, but I'm not so sure about some of you guys. It looks like a conspiracy buff's wet dream to me. I don't believe that something of this scale could be kept secret. If it is real and it comes down to a full-scale crisis, I'm glad that there is a plan in place to deal with it aggressively. If someone lights off a nuke in this country or if everyone starts to drop dead from bird flu, the Constitution won't help anyone to deal with the situation.
That's what I think, you can't build anything in American without one someone protesting that your building something and its hurting the environment and two people would notice large jail/detention center type building going up. People claim that these building have been going up for almost the last then years and there is not one picture/blueprint of these buildings. Yet highly classified documents and program information is being leaked to the New York times everyday.