"America may not have concentration
camps yet, but we’re sure enough
working on ‘em."
William John Cox
If you type the phrase "concentration camps" into yourInternet search engine, you will find page after page of references
to martial law and the construction of concentration camps in the
United States on behalf of the Department of Defense, the
Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA).
A close examination reveals that many of these references lack
sufficient facts to support their conclusions; however, taken as
a whole, there is an abundance of factual information showing
an alarming trend in the deployment of federal and military
forces to restrain and detain American citizens.
Among the Internet sites are those listing between 600 and
800 locations in the United States where the government is
establishing "concentration camps." Many of these are
former or active military bases; however, several provide
detailed information about their location and improvements,
including maps, videos, and satellite photographs.
A former Amtrak facility located in Beech Grove, Indiana, is
featured in a widely viewed video on Youtube. From the audio
description and video images, it is easy to imagine that the
site could be used as a detention facility; however, a telephone
call to the desk officer of the Beech Grove Police
Department reveals that much of the evidence, including
helicopter landing facilities and radio towers, actually
belong to the police department that is located adjacent to
the now largely abandoned facility. The desk officer, who
also happens to be a local city councilman, was unaware
of any federal involvement at the location.
"It’s a straight facility," he said.
There are a number of photographs depicting a site in
northern Michigan with a double row of chainlink fencing
topped with barbwire and elevated guard towers.
The area is part of Camp Grayling, the largest
installation of the Michigan National Guard, which
deploys several military police commands and trains
more than 100 law enforcement agencies from Northern
Michigan. The photographs clearly show an outdoor
detention facility, and recent comments by an undercover
observer confirm that it is currently maintained. However,
there is an e-mail on the Internet dated January 20, 1999,
from a base Deputy Public Affairs Officer who said:
"The ‘camps’ you are referring to are used by our Military
Police for training. One of their war-time missions is to
process and care for prisoners of war (POWs). The
photos you saw are of that training site."
Perhaps the most disturbing images show a Department
of Homeland facility known as Swift Luck Green located in
Central Wyoming. The five satellite photographs are labeled
as having been taken on January 23 and March 24, 2006,
by DigitalGlobe and are annotated as "DHS Facility (SLG)."
Labels include: prisoner housing, restaurant for DHS
personnel; 3-story dormitory for prisoners; guard towers;
and prison cells. Various blogs further identify the location
as a closed coal mine near Hanna, Wyoming, in Carbon County.
There is nothing comparable to the photographs visible
on GoogleEarth at the listed coordinates, and desk officers
at the local sheriff’s office and the police department are
unaware of any local DHS or FEMA facilities. An e-mail to
DigitalGlobe’s media relations contact about the photographs
received this reply: "they were in a report called ‘the hidden
gulag,’ a report on secret nk [North Korean] prison camps."
The report and original photographs can be viewed at the
U.S. Committee for Human Rights in
North Korea’s website, www.hrnk.org.
This is what fear has wrought. First, our own government
has done everything in its power to make us fearful so we
will support its illegal and unconstitutional activities, and then
in our fear, we have come to distrust everything our
government says and does -- for good reason.
The facts are undisputed.
Commencing in the late Sixties, following urban riots in
Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, Seattle,
Cincinnati and Milwaukee, and in response to a
recommendation of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders, the U.S. military
initiated plans to assist local and state civil authorities
during urban unrest. Collectively, the response was
known as "Operation Garden Plot," and each military
branch established its own plans, which have
evolved over the years.
In 1984, a military "Disturbance Plan" defined its
targets as "disruptive elements, extremists or
dissidents perpetrating civil disorder," which in turn is
defined as "riot, acts of violence, insurrections, unlawful
obstructions or assemblages, or other disorders
prejudicial to public law and order." It concludes,
"spontaneous civil disturbances which involve large
numbers of persons and/or which continue for a
considerable period of time, may exceed the capacity of
local civil law enforcement agencies to suppress.
Although this type of activity can arise without warning
as a result of sudden, unanticipated popular unrest . . .
it may result from more prolonged dissidence . . .
This would most likely be the outgrowth of serious social,
political or economic issues which divide segments of the
American population. Such factionalism could manifest
itself through repeated demonstrations, protest
marches and other forms of legitimate opposition but
which would have the potential for erupting into
spontaneous violence with little or no warning."
Dated November 1985, a United States Army field
manual entitled, "Civil Disturbances," says, "If there
are more detainees than civil detention facilities can
handle, civil authorities may ask the [military]
control forces to set up and operate temporary
facilities. . . . These temporary facilities are set up
on the nearest military installation or on suitable
property under federal control . . . supervised and
controlled by MP officers and NCOs trained and
experienced in Army correctional operations."
At the same time as these plans and manuals
were being developed and issued, President Reagan
authorized a secret program for the imposition of
martial law and massive detentions. First revealed
by Oliver North during his congressional testimony,
the plan was known as Readiness Exercise 1984, or
REX 84. The program was originally intended to
confront a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens across
the Mexican-U.S. border, and to provide confinement
facilities where they could be locked up by FEMA.
Otherwise known as a continuity of government plan,
REX 84 involved an actual civil readiness exercise in
April 1984 by FEMA in association with 34 other
federal agencies. In a combined exercise with the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Night Train 84 involved
multi-emergency scenarios at play inside and outside
the U.S. Confronted with civil disturbances, major
demonstrations and labor strikes that would affect
continuity of government and/or resource mobilization,
and to fight subversive activities, the military was
authorized to arrest as many as 400,000 people and
to move them to military facilities for confinement.
In 1985, FEMA’s director was Louis Giuffrida, who
in 1970 had called for the imposition of martial law
in case of a national uprising by black militants. He
envisioned "assembly centers or relocation camps"
for at least 21 million "American Negroes." Regarding
martial law, he later wrote, "No constitution, no
statute or ordinance can authorize Marital Rule. . . .
The significance of Martial Rule in civil disorders is
that it shifts control from civilians and to the military
completely and without the necessity of a declaration,
proclamation or other form of public manifestation. . . .
Martial Rule is limited only by the principle
of necessary force."
As reported by the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987,
"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 Defense Department has developed a "Strategy
for Homeland Defense and Civil Support" against
terrorism that pledges to "transform US military forces
to execute homeland defense missions in the . . . US
homeland." The Pentagon is presently collecting files on
antiwar protesters and is prepared to maximize "threat
awareness" and to seize "the initiative from those who
would harm us." The Pentagon’s National Counterterrorism
Center’s central repository now includes the names
of 325,000 "terrorist" suspects.
In October 2003, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
approved a secret "Information Operations Roadmap"
calling for "full spectrum" information operations,
including a strategy for seizing the Internet and
controlling the flow of information. It views the
worldwide web as a potential military adversary
and speaks of "fighting the net."
The U.S. Army Internet website displays information
about the Pentagon’s "Civilian Inmate Labor Program,"
including "policy and guidance for establishing civilian
inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on
Army installations." The program underwent a "
rapid action revision" on January 14, 2005, to provide a
"template for developing agreements" between the Army
and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate
labor on Army installations.
In yet another exercise in September 2005, the
Pentagon’s U.S. Northern Command conducted a top
secret operation known as Granite Shadow that involved
emergency military operations within the continental
United States without civilian supervision or control.
Under the plan, military special forces units operating
under unique rules of engagement involving deadly
force were deployed to enforce "unity of command."
The original mission of FEMA was to assure the
survival of the United States government in the case
of nuclear attack, with a secondary responsibility to
coordinate the federal response to natural disasters.
However, FEMA has come to operate as a secret
government in waiting, with powers far beyond that
of any other federal agency.
Specific and detailed executive orders now empower
FEMA to: take over all transportation, highways and
seaports; seize and operate all communications media;
take over all electric, gas and petroleum power, fuels
and minerals; take over all airports and aircraft; take
over all railroads, inland waterways and public storage
facilities; take over all farms and food resources; register
all persons and force civilians into work brigades; take
over all health, education and welfare functions; and
establish control over the mechanisms of production
and distribution of energy sources, wages, salaries,
credit and the flow of money in all U.S. financial institutions.
Executive Order 11921 provides that, once a state of
emergency has been declared by the president, the action
cannot be reviewed by Congress for six months.
The John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007
contains a provision entitled "Use of the Armed Forces in
Major Public Emergencies." One effect of the provision
is to expand the president’s limited power to deploy the
military within the United States only "to suppress,
in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful
combination, or conspiracy" to include "natural disaster,
epidemic, or other serious public health emergency,
terrorist attack or incident."
The act authorized the president to assume local authority
"if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that
the constituted authorities of the State or possession are
incapable of maintaining public order." The president now
has the power, without any advance notice to Congress, to
declare marital law in any city experiencing a civil
disturbance or riot similar to any of those experienced
in the past 40 years and to deploy the military, irrespective
of the wishes or consent of local and state authorities.
On May 9, 2007, President Bush signed a
"National Security and Homeland Security Presidential
Directive" defining the "Catastrophic Emergency" leading
to "Continuity of Government coordinated efforts by the
Executive Branch to ensure that National Essential
Functions continue to be performed." Such emergencies
include "any incident, regardless of location, that results
in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or
disruption severely affecting the U.S. population,
infrastructure, environment, economy, or government
functions." Continuity of Operations includes the
continuation of mission-essential functions "during a
wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of
nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related
emergencies."
In its definition of "Enduring Constitutional Government,"
the presidential directive envisions a "cooperative effort
among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of
the Federal Government;" however, it (the effort) is to be
"coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with
respect to the legislative and judicial branches . . ." Comity
is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary as, "Courtesy;
complaisance; respect; a willingness to grant a privilege,
not as a matter of right, but out of deference and good will."
In other words, the "Enduring Constitutional Government"
will be run by the president and any "cooperative" role
played by Congress and the judiciary will be at his pleasure.
Even though Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution
provides that, "All legislative powers herein granted
shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . . ,
" President Bush has, pursuant to his own directives,
given himself the unrestrained power to declare
whatever he imagines to be an emergency. Once he
does so, he alone controls the entire apparatus of
government. He will become responsible for arranging
for the "orderly succession" and the "appropriate
transition of leadership" of the other two branches of
government, and he will do all of this with the able
assistance of his vice president, who has the primary
job of coordinating things.
Conceivably, at his or her sole discretion, existing and
future presidents have the power to use any provocation,
including the election of a successor president hostile to
his or her existing policies, to declare a state of emergency
and to seize and operate the government as a dictatorship
for an indefinite period of time.
More realistically, an increase in street and campus
protests against the Iraq War, similar to those of the
'60s, could easily lead to the imposition of martial law
in the Unites States as an extension of the War on
Terrorism. Or, as the current recession deepens into a
depression with wide spread unemployment, hunger and
civil unrest, martial law could be imposed and military
work camps established. Irrespective of how it plays
out, every scenario involves mass preventative
detentions, without trial, by the military and requires
federal confinement facilities.
Accepting the fact that the president has the power
to detain as many American citizens as he chooses,
is the government actually building facilities to
concentrate them?
In January 2006, the Department of Homeland Security
awarded a $385 million contract to former Halliburton
subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) to provide
detention centers in the United States to deal with
"an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to
support the rapid deployment of new programs."
Unexplained were these "new programs" and why they
require a major expansion of detention centers.
A clue to the definition of "new programs" can be found
in President Bush’s claim that "the territory of the United
States is part of the battlefield" against terrorism and
that he has the power as commander-in-chief to detain
indefinitely any American citizen he designates as an
enemy combatant. He signed the Military Commissions
Act in October 2006 that suspends habeas corpus rights
for everyone he deems to be an enemy combatant and
allows him to confine them indefinitely without trial or
access to counsel. Once detained under the act, "no court,
justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider
any claim or cause for action whatsoever. . . ."
The KBR contract is open-ended and authorizes a
payment of up to $385 million per deployment. It is
administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
which envisions the development of at least four
detention centers, each detaining up to 5,000 single
males and females, families with children, and the sick and
criminal. Established at "unused military sites or
[leased] temporary structures," each facility will be able
to accommodate the sick and criminals for extended
detentions and to arrange for the "rendition" of potential
terrorists to sites outside the continental United States.
Cops have an old saying that you’re not paranoid if
someone really is following you. We cannot forget
that our president has already seized extraordinary
dictatorial powers and that he really is spending
millions of dollars for the construction of detention
facilities to support the "rapid development" of his
"new programs." Nor, can we ignore that, contrary to
international law, the United States government is in
fact detaining hundreds of "unlawful combatants"
in prison facilities in Guantanamo Bay and at other
secret locations around the world. Finally, we have to
accept: that our government is abusing and torturing
these detainees to obtain information that will be used
against them should they ever come to trial; that they
have no access to the federal courts to appeal their
detentions; that they cannot consult with counsel without
the presence of military monitors, who also read their
legal mail; that they cannot review or challenge the
"classified" evidence against them; and that they cannot
confront or cross examine the witnesses against them.
There’s another old saying, "If you snooze, you lose."
We have a very narrow window of opportunity
between the time we recognize a deadly threat and
when we do something about it. Given the highly
advanced technological age we live in and the ready
availability of overwhelming military force, once our
freedoms are lost, they will be gone forever, whether or
not every single one of us is "bearing arms."
Two weeks ago, Congress took an important first step
in restricting the president’s power by repealing a
largely unrecognized section of the 2007 Defense
Appropriations Act that, last year, effectively transferred
command of the National Guards from state governors
to the president. With the unanimous support of the
National Governors Association, the National Sheriffs’
Association and other law enforcement agencies,
Congress restricted the power of the president to order
the National Guard of any state to be used within that
state or in any other state without the consent of the
appropriate state governors.
We must immediately stop the deployment of National
Guard troops to fight the illegal war in Iraq and bring
them all home where they belong. Remaining under
the control of state governors and given time to rest
and the resources to re-equip, a well-trained and
properly deployed National Guard, acting in support
of local law enforcement, will be able to maintain order
in most, if not all, domestic disturbances, natural
disasters and terrorists attacks. If we survived the
assassinations and riots of the '60s without martial law,
we should be able to get by today without military
intervention or the president’s help.
There is no time to lose! Congress must immediately
hold hearings on the power of the president to declare
martial law, to deploy the military within the United
States, and to detain American citizens, without trial
or benefit of habeas corpus. Congress must establish
the constitutional limits of presidential power by statute,
rather than to allow the president to do so by his own
executive orders.
The incursions on civil liberties in the United States in
the past 25 years, and particularly since 9-11, are
mind-boggling. It matters not whether you are a
Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, conservative or
liberal, you have been deprived of substantial freedoms
guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, unnecessarily, in the
War on Terrorism. Fear the loss, perceive the danger,
and do something about it!
The calendar may say 2008, but, increasingly,
we’re living in 1984. America may not have concentration
camps yet, but we’re sure enough working on ‘em.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
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