Directive Provides Government With Intelligence After Declaration of Martial Law

Even in the unlikely event there is a nuclear war or some other catastrophic event, a directive issued by the director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, will make sure the NSA still listens in on your calls, that is if there are any phones or cell towers left following Armageddon.

The directive, issued on November 12, makes certain the “President, the Vice President, statutory successors, and other national leaders, as appropriate, are provided with timely, insightful, objective, and relevant national intelligence wherever they are located and in all conditions.”

Clapper’s directive sets in motion NSPD 51, which provides the Department of Homeland Security with ominous police state authority.

“The new Directive implements the Bush Administration’s 2007 National Security Presidential Directive 51 on ‘National Continuity Policy.’ Presidential directives remain in force unless or until they are superseded or rescinded,” the FAS Project on Government Secrecy reported on December 2.

The directive falls under COG, or Continuity of Government, and draws on the National Security Act of 1947 (creating the current national security state and the CIA), a number of executive orders, NSPD-51, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20, and “other applicable provisions of law.”

COG Designed to Establish Police State Following Declaration of Martial Law

During the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, COG was exposed as a plan to suspend the Constitution and impose martial law in America.

According to a report published in the Miami Herald, the plan called for taking over federal, state and local government functions during a national emergency. COG, as envisioned by the National Security Council, called for “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law,” writes Peter Dale Scott.

Initially established as a response to nuclear war, COG planning underwent a critical transformation during the Reagan administration. Under Reagan, it was modified to be a police state response for any “national security emergency,” a move that was codified in Executive Order 12656.

“In other words extraordinary emergency measures, originally designed for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, were now to be applied to anything the White House considered an emergency,” writes Scott.

The Boston Globe spelled out the new parameters: “Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency… to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.”

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we witnessed a FEMA beta test of the extraordinary powers under COG and Rex 84, the latter a military readiness exercise designed to round-up and intern in concentration camps dissidents and other elements considered threatening to the government.

“These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general’s signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached,” the Miami Herald reported on July 5, 1987.

“And there you have it — the real purpose of FEMA is to not only protect the government but to be its principal vehicle for martial law,” writes Allen L. Roland.

COG was implemented during the attacks of September 11, 2001, by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, two of the original planners.

“What few have recognized is that, nearly a decade later, some aspects of COG remain in effect,” Scott continues. “COG plans are still authorized by a proclamation of emergency that has been extended each year by presidential authority, most recently by President Obama in September 2009. COG plans are also the probable source for the 1000-page Patriot Act presented to Congress five days after 9/11, and also for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.”

Laws passed since the 9/11 attacks, including the Patriot Act, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, and the Military Commissions Act, are designed top compliment and enhance COG operations that are more tightly focused on responding to internal dissent and palatable threats to the status quo than maintaining government cohesion after a nuclear attack.

Jerome Corsi talks about NSPD-51: