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Monday, July 23, 2007

Our plan for continuity of government in the event of disaster is so secret we can't let you see it
Posted by Jill | 6:42 AM
...not even the guy whose job it is to oversee it:

Oregonians called Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.

As a member of the U.S. House on the Homeland Security Committee, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom" in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.

On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.

"I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack," DeFazio says.

[snip]

Norm Ornstein, a legal scholar who studies government continuity at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he "cannot think of one good reason" to deny access to a member of Congress who serves on the Homeland Security Committee.

"I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House," Ornstein said.

This is the first time DeFazio has been denied access to documents. DeFazio has asked Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., to help him access the documents.

"Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right," DeFazio said.


Gee, ya think? Libby Spencer, who wrote about this article, notes this conservative blogger, who thinks this is all paranoia:

Think about what would happen if the President tried to cancel elections and declare martial law: Do you really think that the military (the same generals who basically drove Rumsfeld out and who threatened to resign en masse if the President ordered a premature strike on Iran) would support and carry out such an extra-Constitutional move? Do you think the media would just stand by and that the Congress would shrug? Do you even think that Republicans in Congress would support the establishment of such a precedent that could just as easily be used against one of them down the road?


Uh....yes I do. And do I think the media would stand by and Congress would shrug? You bet I do. In the case of the media, we have plenty of history indicating the media's willingness, Keith Olbermann notwithstanding, to go along with just about anything this Administration wants to do. And as for Republicans in Congress establishing precedents that could be used against one of them, well, they're already doing it in allowing this president to take away their oversight role.

I don't think such a move would be done in a vacuum. But it's abundantly clear by now that at the very least, this administration had foreknowledge that the something akin to the 9/11 attacks were going to occur -- and they allowed them to play out in spectacular fashion, because this president wanted to go to war with Iraq, and such an attack would provide the "new Pearl Harbor" cited by PNAC as potential justification. If it looked like Dick Cheney didn't want to give up power, or if it started to look like Bush and Cheney were going to be tried as war criminals, I don't put anything past them.

Those who would say that these notions sound like the ravings of the black helicopter crowd during the Clinton years are comparing apples and oranges. My belief that such things are possible for this president and this vice president aren't based on my inherent loathing of them, they are based on their obvious and avowed enthusiasm for the "unitary executive" -- accountable to no one. If it seems that someone might actually hold them accountable for their deeds, well, a cornered animal is the most dangerous kind.

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