Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fema 3
Fema 3
------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet more terrifying is the plan hatched by North and other Reagan
people in the Federal Emergency Manpower Agency (FEMA): A blueprint
for the military takeover of the United States. The plan called for
FEMA to become ``emergency czar'' in the event of a national emergency
such as nuclear war or an American invasion of a foreign nation. FEMA
would also be a buffer between the president and his cabinet and other
civilian agencies, and would have broad powers to appoint military
commanders and run state and local governments. Finally, it would
have the authority to order suspect aliens into concentration camps
and seize their property.
When then-Attorney General William French Smith got wind of the plan,
he killed it. After Smith left the administration, North and his FEMA
cronies came up with the Defense Resource Act, designed to suspendend
the First Amendment by imposing censorship and banning strikes.
Bradlee writes that the Rex exercise was designed to test FEMA's
readiness to assume authority over the Department of Defense, the
National Guard in all 50 states, and ``a number of state defense
forces to be established by state legislatures.'' The military would
then be ``deputized,'' thus making an end run around federal law
forbidding military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Rex, which ran concurrently with the first annual U.S. show of force
in Honduras in April 1984, was also designed to test FEMA's ability to
round up 400,000 undocumented Central American aliens in the United
States and its ability to distribute hundreds of tons of small arms to
``state defense forces.''
--------------------------------END:REF3-----------------------------------
###########################################################################
--------------------------------REF4:FEMA----------------------------------
[PeaceNet forward from AML (ACTIV-L) -- see bottom for more info]
------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the front-page article of the Jan. 16 issue of "The
Guardian," which describes some of the U.S. government's planning
for martial law in the event of the Gulf war. This is truly a
scary scenario that should concern all civil libertarians and
patriots.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reynolds says the net effect of invoking these laws would be the
suspension of the Constitution.
She adds that national emergency powers "permit the stationing of the
military in cities and towns, closing off the U.S. borders, freezing
all imports and exports, allocating all resources on a national
security priority, monitoring and censoring the press, and warrantless
searches and seizures."
The federal agency with the authority to organize and command the
government's response to a national emergency is the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA). This super-secret and elite agency was
formed in 1979 under congressional measures that merged all federal
powers dealing with civilian and military emergencies under one
agency.
FEMA has its roots in the World War I partnership between government
and corporate leaders who helped mobilize the nation's industries to
support the war effort. The idea of a central national response to
large-scale emergencies was reintroduced in the early 1970s by Louis
Giuffrida, a close associate of then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan and
his chief aide Edwin Meese.
Aware of the bad publicity FEMA was getting because of its role in
organizing for a post-nuclear world, Reagan's FEMA chief Giuffrida
publicly argued that the 1865 Posse Comitatus Act prohibited the
military from arresting civilians.
However, Reynolds says that Congress eroded the act by giving the
military reserves an exemption from Posse Comitatus and allowing them
to arrest civilians. The National Guard, under the control of state
governors in peace time, is also exempt from the act and can arrest
civilians.
DOMESTIC SPYING
Reynolds reports that "the CIA is going to various campuses asking for
information on Middle Eastern students. I'm sure that there are
intelligence organizations monitoring peace demonstrations."
According to the University of Connecticut student paper, the Daily
Campus, CIA officials have recently met there to discuss talking with
Middle Eastern students.
The New York Times reports that the FBI has ordered its agents around
the country to question Arab-American leaders and business people in
search of information on potential Iraqi "terrorist" attacks in
response to a Gulf war.
By Donald Goldberg
The mountains bend as the fjord and the sea beyond stretch
out before the viewer's eyes. First over the water, then a sharp
left turn, then a bank to the right between the peaks, and the
secret naval base unfolds upon the screen.
The scene is of a Soviet military installation on the Kola
Peninsula in the icy Barents Sea, a place usually off-limits to
the gaze of the Western world. It was captured by a small French
satellite called SPOT Image, orbiting at an altitude of 517 miles
above the hidden Russian outpost. On each of several passes --
made over a two-week period last fall -- the satellite's high-
resolution lens took its pictures at a different angle; the
images were then blended into a three-dimensional, computer-
generated video. Buildings, docks, vessels, and details of the
Artic landscape are all clearly visible.
Half a world away and thousands of feet under the sea,
sparkling-clear images are being made of the ocean floor. Using
the latest bathymetric technology and state-of-the-art systems
known as Seam Beam and Hydrochart, researchers are for the first
time assembling detailed underwater maps of the continental
shelves and the depths of the world's oceans. These scenes of
the sea are as sophisticated as the photographs taken from the
satellite.
From the three-dimensional images taken far above the earth
to the charts of the bottom of the oceans, these photographic
systems have three things in common: They both rely on the
latest technology to create accurate pictures never dreamed of
even 25 years ago; they are being made widely available by
commerical, nongovernmental enterprises; and the Pentagon is
trying desperately to keep them from the general public.
In 1985 the Navy classified the underwater charts, making
them available only to approved researchers whose needs are
evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Under a 1984 law the military
has been given a say in what cameras can be licensed to be used
on American satellites; and officials have already announced they
plan to limit the quality and resolution of photos made
available. The National Security Agency (NSA) -- the secret arm
of the Pentagon in charge of gathering electronic intelligence as
well as protecting sensitive U.S. communications -- has defeated
a move to keep it away from civilian and commercial computers and
databases.
That attitude has outraged those concerned with the
military's increasing efforts to keep information not only from
the public but from industry experts, scientists, and even other
government officials as well. "That's like classifying a road
map for fear of invasion," says Paul Wolff, assistant
administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, of the attempted restrictions.
These attempts to keep unclassified data out of the hands of
scientists, researchers, the news media, and the public at large
are a part of an alarming trend that has seen the military take
an ever-increasing role in controlling the flow of information
and communications through American society, a role traditionally
-- and almost exclusively -- left to civilians. Under the
approving gaze of the Reagan administration, Department of
Defense (DoD) officials have quietly implemented a number of
policies, decisions, and orders that give the military
unprecedented control over both the content and public use of
data and communications. For example:
=================================================================
Psi-Tech and alien brain-wave research -- Whats going on at Los Alamos?