March 24, 2009
Peter Dale Scott and Dan Hamburg
On 9/11 the Bush administration declared a State of Emergency (SOE), which was formally proclaimed on September 14, 2001, and extended by Bush repeatedly thereafter, most recently on August 28, 2008.1 Under cover of this SOE, Bush secretly enacted many extreme measures, ranging from suspension of habeas corpus to preparations for martial law in America; all these were undertaken as part of secret so-called "Continuity of Government" (COG) procedures associated with the SOE, and first instituted on 9/11.2 and 3
The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms so detested by Vice-President Cheney, requires specifically that
Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated.
(50 U.S.C. 1622 (2002)4
Last fall one of us appealed on the Internet for the Democrats in Congress to take this statutorily required step, and also to learn what secret COG measures were being enacted under the SOE.5 There was no response.
In February 2009 we sent to officials in Washington the following appeal to consider terminating the State of Emergency. The appeal was sent to President Obama's staff in the White House, and to the staff of Nancy Pelosi, Peter DeFazio, and Dennis Kucinich in Congress. Almost two months have passed, and there has not yet been any response from the addressees.
We are now appealing to the readers of this post to contact their representatives in Congress, and demand that they consider the termination of the State of Emergency, as is required of them by law.
(click on title for remainder of story)
The following was posted today at 911.org in anticipation of some questions:
ReplyDeleteSaturday, March 28 2009 - Get Involved
Update - National Emergencies action item
On Wednesday we posted an appeal for readers to take action regarding a current state of national emergency in the US, declared by George W. Bush after 9/11/01. Since then, the appeal has been sent to at least 20,000 people via email, linked to from numerous other sites, and reposted in full at several sites. We are beginning to get notification from readers of specific Representatives and Senators to whom letters are being sent, with follow-up calls planned. Please continue to send those to us at responses[at]911truth.org. We intend to start posting that information shortly.
Some people have written to ask whether we've completely lost our collective mind... "Do you really think this Congress--who has refused to investigate or even talk about 9/11 crimes for all these years--is suddenly going to divulge honest information about their lack of oversight of National Emergencies, and act to terminate it just because you send them a letter?!" Well, uhm, not really, no.
But do we think some of them will look into it and respond with a real answer? Perhaps. Do we think we'll get a lot of boilerplate responses about "the danger terrorists pose to the safety of every God-fearing Amurikan and so we must remain vigilent," but don't actually answer either question? Probably. However, equally important is simply getting this information to them, and to Americans who read this and had no idea of the situation. Personally, my (Janice) experience has been that when I called my Rep previously, outraged about another national emergency proclamation, not one staffer in his office was able to answer a single question about it, because they had no idea one had been issued! Nor had they ever heard that Congress is able to overturn any executive order if they act on it within the first 30 days. NEVER heard of that! So yes, it's important to bring these issues to their attention, and tell them that we are concerned, and paying attention.
Each house of Congress is required by the National Emergencies Act to meet and review every national emergency proclaimed, every six months. Have they done that? Are they doing their job in overseeing the Executive? We've seen for many years now that the answer to that is a resounding no. Do they know the implications of a president declaring a national emergency, the potential effects on the people, and on Congress itself? Shouldn't we hold them accountable to do all aspects of their job, particularly when required by law? Yes. And if they don't, and won't even answer our questions when we specifically ask them to do so, they've abdicated their responsibility in a manner that needs to be very clearly, publicly revealed. If we were running a business, we would FIRE our employee immediately for such subordination ... why would we not fire our Reps/Senators--who ARE also our employees, after all--for the same failure to fulfill their job requirements?
There WILL eventually be a straw that breaks the back of this dirty, rotten system. But not until we've piled on enough straws that its back begins to crack under the weight of citizen oversight and participation. Why not add a bit more weight right now?