FEMA: The Secret
Government
by Harry V. Martin
Some people have referred to it as
the "secret government" of the United States. It is not an elected body, it
does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a
quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. This government organization
has more power than the President of the United States or the Congress, it
has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain
citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize
property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the
Constitution.
Not only is it the most powerful
entity in the United States, but it was not even created under
Constitutional law by the Congress. It was a product of a Presidential
Executive Order. No, it is not the U.S. military nor the Central
Intelligence Agency, they are subject to Congress. The organization is
called FEMA, which stands for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Originally conceived in the Richard Nixon Administration, it was refined by
President Jimmy Carter and given teeth in the Ronald Reagan and George Bush
Administrations.
FEMA had one original concept when
it was created, to assure the survivability of the United States government
in the event of a nuclear attack on this nation. It was also provided with
the task of being a federal coordinating body during times of domestic
disasters, such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. Its awesome powers
grow under the tutelage of people like Lt. Col. Oliver North and General
Richard Secord, the architects on the Iran-Contra scandal and the looting of
America's savings and loan institutions. FEMA has even been given control of
the State Defense Forces, a rag-tag, often considered neo-Nazi, civilian
army that will substitute for the National Guard, if the Guard is called to
duty overseas.
The Most Powerful Organization In
The United States
Though it may be the most powerful
organization in the United States, few people know it even exists. But it
has crept into our private lives. Even mortgage papers contain FEMA's name
in small print if the property in question is near a flood plain. FEMA was
deeply involved in the Los Angeles riots and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the black helicopter traffic reported
throughout the United States, but mainly in the West, California,
Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, are flown by FEMA
personnel. FEMA has been given responsibility for many new disasters
including urban forest fires, home heating emergencies, refugee situations,
urban riots, and emergency planning for nuclear and toxic incidents. In the
West, it works in conjunction with the Sixth Army.
FEMA was created in a series of
Executive Orders. A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or
not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress
is by-passed. Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency
Management Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for
civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA
has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies, the
bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret
underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major
emergency, foreign or domestic. Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the
National Security Council as the principal body that should consider
emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic
intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the
freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the
right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be
federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all
ports of entry.
Here are just a few Executive Orders
associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and
could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:
![[WWW]](http://www.911review.org/img/moin-www.gif)
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of
transportation and control of highways and seaports.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the
communication media.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power,
gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources
and farms.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work
brigades under government supervision.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education
and welfare functions.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national
registration of all persons.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and
aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate
communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be
abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland
waterways and public storage facilities.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency
Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect
in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial
crisis.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants
authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in
Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial
and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and
correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
EXECUTIVE
ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal
departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders
issued over a fifteen year period.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the
Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish
control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy
sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial
institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that
when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot
review the action for six months.
The Federal Emergency Management
Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank
Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference
that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual
and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military
installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of
dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience
in times of crisis."
FEMA's powers were consolidated by
President Carter to incorporate:
-
the National Security Act of
1947, which allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services,
government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize
the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities;
-
the 1950 Defense Production Act,
which gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the
economy;
-
the Act of August 29, 1916,
which authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take
possession of any transportation system for transporting troops,
material, or any other purpose related to the emergency; and
-
the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act, which enables the President to seize the property
of a foreign country or national.
These powers were transferred to
FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.
Hurricane Andrew Focused
Attention On FEMA
FEMA's deceptive role really did not
come to light with much of the public until Hurricane Andrew smashed into
the U.S. mainland. As Russell R. Dynes, director of the Disaster Research
Center of the University of Delaware, wrote in The World and I, "...The eye
of the political storm hovered over the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
FEMA became a convenient target for criticism." Because FEMA was accused of
dropping the ball in Florida, the media and Congress commenced to study this
agency. What came out of the critical look was that FEMA was spending 12
times more for "black operations" than for disaster relief. It spent $1.3
billion building secret bunkers throughout the United States in anticipation
of government disruption by foreign or domestic upheaval. Yet fewer than 20
members of Congress , only members with top security clearance, know of the
$1.3 billion expenditure by FEMA for non-natural disaster situations. These
few Congressional leaders state that FEMA has a "black curtain" around its
operations. FEMA has worked on National Security programs since 1979, and
its predecessor, the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency, has secretly
spent millions of dollars before being merged into FEMA by President Carter
in 1979.
FEMA has developed 300 sophisticated
mobile units that are capable of sustaining themselves for a month. The
vehicles are located in five areas of the United States. They have
tremendous communication systems and each contains a generator that would
provide power to 120 homes each, but have never been used for disaster
relief.
FEMA's enormous powers can be
triggered easily. In any form of domestic or foreign problem, perceived and
not always actual, emergency powers can be enacted. The President of the
United States now has broader powers to declare martial law, which activates
FEMA's extraordinary powers. Martial law can be declared during time of
increased tension overseas, economic problems within the United States, such
as a depression, civil unrest, such as demonstrations or scenes like the Los
Angeles riots, and in a drug crisis. These Presidential powers have
increased with successive Crime Bills, particularly the 1991 and 1993 Crime
Bills, which increase the power to suspend the rights guaranteed under the
Constitution and to seize property of those suspected of being drug dealers,
to individuals who participate in a public protest or demonstration. Under
emergency plans already in existence, the power exists to suspend the
Constitution and turn over the reigns of government to FEMA and appointing
military commanders to run state and local governments. FEMA then would have
the right to order the detention of anyone whom there is reasonable ground
to believe...will engage in, or probably conspire with others to engage in
acts of espionage or sabotage. The plan also authorized the establishment of
concentration camps for detaining the accused, but no trial.
Three times since 1984, FEMA stood
on the threshold of taking control of the nation. Once under President
Reagan in 1984, and twice under President Bush in 1990 and 1992. But under
those three scenarios, there was not a sufficient crisis to warrant risking
martial law. Most experts on the subject of FEMA and Martial Law insisted
that a crisis has to appear dangerous enough for the people of the United
States before they would tolerate or accept complete government takeover.
The typical crisis needed would be threat of imminent nuclear war, rioting
in several U.S. cites simultaneously, a series of national disasters that
affect widespread danger to the populous, massive terrorist attacks, a
depression in which tens of millions are unemployed and without financial
resources, or a major environmental disaster.
Three Times FEMA Stood By Ready
For Emergency
In April 1984, President Reagan
signed Presidential Director Number 54 that allowed FEMA to engage in a
secret national "readiness exercise" under the code name of REX 84. The
exercise was to test FEMA's readiness to assume military authority in the
event of a "State of Domestic National Emergency" concurrent with the
launching of a direct United States military operation in Central America.
The plan called for the deputation of U.S. military and National Guard units
so that they could legally be used for domestic law enforcement. These units
would be assigned to conduct sweeps and take into custody an estimated
400,000 undocumented Central American immigrants in the United States. The
immigrants would be interned at 10 detention centers to be set up at
military bases throughout the country.
REX 84 was so highly guarded that
special metal security doors were placed on the fifth floor of the FEMA
building in Washington, D.C. Even long-standing employees of the Civil
Defense of the Federal Executive Department possessing the highest possible
security clearances were not being allowed through the newly installed metal
security doors. Only personnel wearing a special red Christian cross or
crucifix lapel pin were allowed into the premises. Lt. Col. North was
responsible for drawing up the emergency plan, which U.S. Attorney General
William French Smith opposed vehemently. The plan called for the suspension
of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to FEMA,
appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and
the declaration of Martial Law. The Presidential Executive Orders to support
such a plan were already in place. The plan also advocated the rounding up
and transfer to "assembly centers or relocation camps" of a least 21 million
American Negroes in the event of massive rioting or disorder, not unlike the
rounding up of the Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
The second known time that FEMA
stood by was in 1990 when Desert Storm was enacted. Prior to President
Bush's invasion of Iraq, FEMA began to draft new legislation to increase its
already formidable powers. One of the elements incorporated into the plan
was to set up operations within any state or locality without the prior
permission of local or state authorities. Such prior permission has always
been required in the past. Much of the mechanism being set into place was in
anticipation of the economic collapse of the Western World. The war with
Iraq may have been conceived as a ploy to boost the bankrupt economy, but it
only pushed the West into deeper recession.
The third scenario for FEMA came
with the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King brutality verdict. Had the
rioting spread to other cities, FEMA would have been empowered to step in.
As it was, major rioting only occurred in the Los Angeles area, thus
preventing a pretext for a FEMA response.
On July 5, 1987, the Miami Herald
published reports on FEMA's new goals. The goal was to suspend the
Constitution in the event of a national crisis, such as nuclear war, violent
and widespread internal dissent, or national opposition to a U.S. military
invasion abroad. Lt. Col. North was the architect. National Security
Directive Number 52 issued in August 1982, pertains to the "Use of National
Guard Troops to Quell Disturbances."
The crux of the problem is that FEMA
has the power to turn the United States into a police state in time of a
real crisis or a manufactured crisis. Lt. Col. North virtually established
the apparatus for dictatorship. Only the criticism of the Attorney General
prevented the plans from being adopted. But intelligence reports indicate
that FEMA has a folder with 22 Executive Orders for the President to sign in
case of an emergency. It is believed those Executive Orders contain the
framework of North's concepts, delayed by criticism but never truly
abandoned.
The crisis, as the government now
see it, is civil unrest. For generations, the government was concerned with
nuclear war, but the violent and disruptive demonstrations that surrounded
the Vietnam War era prompted President Nixon to change the direction of
emergency powers from war time to times of domestic unrest. Diana Raynolds,
program director of the Edward R. Murrow Center, summed up the dangers of
FEMA today and the public reaction to Martial Law in a drug crisis: "It was
James Madison's worst nightmare that a righteous faction would someday be
strong enough to sweep away the Constitutional restraints designed by the
framers to prevent the tyranny of centralized power, excessive privilege, an
arbitrary governmental authority over the individual. These restraints, the
balancing and checking of powers among branches and layers of government,
and the civil guarantees, would be the first casualties in a drug-induced
national security state with Reagan's Civil Emergency Preparedness
unleashed. Nevertheless, there would be those who would welcome NSC
(National Security Council) into the drug fray, believing that increasing
state police powers to emergency levels is the only way left to fight
American's enemy within. In the short run, a national security state would
probably be a relief to those whose personal security and quality of life
has been diminished by drugs or drug related crime. And, as the general
public watches the progression of institutional chaos and social decay, they
too may be willing to pay the ultimate price, one drug free America for 200
years of democracy."
The first targets in any FEMA
emergency would be Hispanics and Blacks, the FEMA orders call for them to be
rounded up and detained. Tax protesters, demonstrators against government
military intervention outside U.S. borders, and people who maintain weapons
in their homes are also targets. Operation Trojan Horse is a program
designed to learn the identity of potential opponents to martial law. The
program lures potential protesters into public forums, conducted by a "hero"
of the people who advocates survival training. The list of names gathered at
such meetings and rallies are computerized and then targeted in case of an
emergency.
The most shining example of America
to the world has been its peaceful transition of government from one
administration to another. Despite crises of great magnitude, the United
States has maintained its freedom and liberty. This nation now stands on the
threshold of rule by non-elected people asserting non-Constitutional powers.
Even Congress cannot review a Martial Law action until six months after it
has been declared. For the first time in American history, the reigns of
government would not be transferred from one elected element to another, but
the Constitution, itself, can be suspended.
The scenarios established to trigger
FEMA into action are generally found in the society today, economic
collapse, civil unrest, drug problems, terrorist attacks, and protests
against American intervention in a foreign country. All these premises
exist, it could only be a matter of time in which one of these triggers the
entire emergency necessary to bring FEMA into action, and then it may be too
late, because under the FEMA plan, there is no contingency by which
Constitutional power is restored.
Harry V. Martin with research
assistance from David Caul
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