- Joined
- Mar 3, 2021
Why is the NYT bringing this up now? These plans have been around since the 50s. Did they uncover something new? Anyone a subscriber that can shed some light on this? I am not.
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White House Plans for Wartime Power Scenarios
- Thread starter william
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2020
That part of taking over or shutting off the internet is wacky as fuck.
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2016
The internet was created to keep communication going during and after a nuclear attack. Also, as you point out, said plans have been around for around 70 years, so they must have been updated recently to include the internet.
In the event of all out nuclear war, those plans would be about as useful as a wet blanket on a cold day.
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2015
If people think that the internet was designed for communications during or after a nuclear attack, they are in for a real shock. the internet is one of the most fragile types of communication out there. The only thing that could possibly even survive (and only on a pretty local basis) would be CB radio, or for longer distances, ham radio. That's it and nothing else. In other words--radio.
- Joined
- May 24, 2022
That’s why I am going to get my ham licence. Great hobby and will probably survive horrible situations.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2017
It also depends on where you are from the attack. If the nuclear attack is a long distance away (hopefully for you), there is the possibility of bluetooth communications - local phone to phone - using same short-range concepts as walkie-talkie - except with a digital tool. Given that non-nuclear threats are highest probability, I would recommend some bluetooth communications preparedness, as you might get by for a while on battery power only, and there will be more people with bluetooth communications tools. Bluetooth communications, Smartphone Access Network (SPAN), and Mesh communications network contingencies.
This got merged into a forum call "OS devices susceptible to viruses" but really has nothing to do with that topic.
OS/Devices Succeptible to Viruses & Hybrid Attack Preparedness
I am posting this thread to address "hybrid attacks" based on 2022-level threats, and pros/cons on issues involving technology and impact of an enemy/other attack on public. This will not focus on mass nuclear bomb attacks, as clearly well-documented in other sources, except alternatives to...
community.defconwarningsystem.com
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2017
It is mainly about Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) and Brennan Center for Justice research on them. See links at bottom of post. The timing was Brennan Center getting a response to FOIA request to Bush Presidential library.
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Documents Shed Light on Secret U.S. Plans for Apocalyptic Scenarios
Dating back to 1950s preparations for nuclear war and revised after the Sept. 11 attacks, the presidential directives are not shown to Congress.
Charlie Savage
May 26, 2022
Documents Shed Light on Secret U.S. Plans for Apocalyptic Scenarios
Dating back to 1950s preparations for nuclear war and revised after the Sept. 11 attacks, the presidential directives are not shown to Congress.
WASHINGTON — Newly disclosed documents have shed a crack of light on secret executive branch plans for apocalyptic scenarios — like the aftermath of a nuclear attack — when the president may activate wartime powers for national security emergencies.
Until now, public knowledge of what the government put into those classified directives, which invoke emergency and wartime powers granted by Congress or otherwise claimed by presidents, has been limited to declassified descriptions of those developed in the early Cold War. In that era, they included steps like imposing martial law, rounding up people deemed dangerous and censoring news from abroad.
It has not been clear what is in the modern directives — known as presidential emergency action documents — because under administrations of both parties, none have been made public or shown to Congress. But the newly disclosed documents, which relate to the George W. Bush administration’s efforts to revise the draft orders after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, offer clues.
Several of the files, provided to The New York Times by the Brennan Center for Justice, show that the Bush-era effort partly focused on a law that permits the president to take over or shut down communications networks in wartime. That suggests the government may have developed or revised such an order in light of the explosive growth in the 1990s of the consumer internet.
Underscoring how little lawmakers and the public can infer, another file, from the summer of 2008, mentioned that Justice Department lawyers were revising an unidentified draft order in light of a recent Supreme Court opinion. The memo does not specify the ruling, but the court had just issued landmark decisions on topics that could relate to government actions in an emergency — one about gun rights in the United States and another about the rights of Guantánamo detainees to court hearings.
“The bottom line is that these documents leave no doubt that the post-9/11 emergency actions documents have direct and significant implications for Americans’ civil liberties,” said Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “And yet, there is no oversight by Congress. And that’s unacceptable.”
Even though it is unclear how the directives have evolved since the later stages of the Cold War, Ms. Goitein said they have likely expanded to include other scenarios beyond a devastating nuclear attack. The documents show that later versions extended from one category to seven, although their topics remain secret, and fall within the jurisdiction of agencies with different areas of focus.
The newly disclosed documents show that there were 48 of the directives when the Bush administration took office; by 2008, that number had grown to 56. Vice President Dick Cheney’s office was involved in reviewing and “clearing” the orders. The documents do not indicate any consultation with Congress.
Several Bush administration officials whose names were mentioned in the documents, speaking on background to discuss matters that remain classified, portrayed the effort as bureaucratic “good housekeeping.” It seemed prudent as the government reoriented to focus on national security after the Sept. 11 attacks, they said.
The Brennan Center for Justice, which has gathered materials about the presidential emergency action documents, obtained the files under the Freedom of Information Act from the Bush presidential library. The disclosures constituted about 500 pages, while about 6,000 more pages were withheld as classified.
The disclosures come after the House passed a bill in December that would impose significant curbs on executive power after the Trump years, including a provision that would require disclosure of the emergency action documents to congressional overseers.
The bill, called the Protecting Our Democracy Act, is not expected to pass the Senate, where Republicans can block it with a filibuster. But advocates of imposing some new limits on presidential emergency powers, with some bipartisan support, are discussing trying later this year to attach a portion to an annual defense authorization act that is considered “must pass” legislation.
It is not yet clear whether the provision about emergency action documents would be included in any such step. But Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who drafted the provision as stand-alone legislation in 2020, said Congress has an opportunity to bring some accountability to the emergency planning.
“It’s our duty as lawmakers to demand that the executive branch turn over documents so Congress, as representatives of the American people, can evaluate the constitutionality of any future president’s attempt to exploit an emergency to assume extraordinary powers,” he said in a statement provided to The Times.
Mr. Markey proposed his bill after President Donald J. Trump claimed he wielded “total” authority in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and declared a national emergency.
More is public about 1950s and 1960s versions of the draft emergency action orders because some have been mentioned or described in memos that have since been declassified. For example, they included directives imposing versions of martial law, censoring information crossing the border and suspending court hearings for detained people. It is unclear whether the current set includes similar actions.
Another early emergency action order, from the 1950s, was readied to create military zones prohibiting certain categories of people. The directive echoed how the government barred Japanese and Japanese Americans from large swaths of the West Coast during World War II, leading to their internment. In 1967, the Justice Department recommended dropping that one, a memo declassified in 2019 shows.
“The broad-scale criticism of the Japanese relocation program is well-known and well-founded,” the 1967 memo stated, adding: “It is open to serious question whether any similar program should be authorized which would permit the removal or detention of American citizens as a group based solely on their race, religion or national origin.”
Other orders from that era included a declaration that a state of war existed, a directive to arrange for reconvening Congress at a secure site, and the creation of an agency empowered to impose sweeping controls over the economy. That agency, reporting to the president, could enact controls like requisitioning private property and allocating materials; imposing wage, price and rent controls; rationing; and settling labor disputes.
For several years, the Obama-era Justice Department mentioned in budget documents submitted to Congress that its Office of Legal Counsel in 2012 had begun to review the legality of the 56 presidential emergency action documents. In 2017, the Trump Justice Department repeated that reference in its own budget request, after which it fell out of the annual submissions.
But subsequent budget documents have not disclosed what further changes, if any, the Obama and Trump administration made to them.
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Associated Web Links:
-- "Obama-era Justice Department mentioned in budget documents submitted to Congress that its Office of Legal Counsel in 2012 had begun to review the legality of the 56 presidential emergency action documents" - apparently ditto in 2017 Trump administration budget draft
-- Brennan Center for Justice research on Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs)
Presidential Emergency Action Documents
Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) are executive orders, proclamations, and messages to Congress that are prepared in anticipation of a range of emergency scenarios.
-- take over or shut down communications networks in wartime
47 U.S. Code § 606 - War powers of President
Presidential Emergency Action Documents
Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) are executive orders, proclamations, and messages to Congress that are prepared in anticipation of a range of emergency scenarios.
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- Joined
- Apr 9, 2017
- Location
- NYC
This wasn't exactly a secret, though? Anybody who's been even half awake the last 20 years has been aware that these plans exist.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2017
You are right, but there are some young adults who were just born 20 years ago. The debate over USG has been so monofocused on political activism regarding Trump, I don't think a lot of young adults would be aware of these PEADs or that anything restricted American freedom ever happened before or after Trump. At some point, the NYT and the Millenial generation will start to realize that their FBI has been bragging about kicking in Americans doors down.
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2022
- Location
- Tropical Queensland, Australia
Maybe something along the lines of Aloha net that University of Hawaii had many years ago. Allowed TCP/IP network connection to remote islands via a radio network, Similar systems using AM frequency ranges have been used in Africa to create a rapidly implemented wide range network backbone. Agreed that radio communications will be all that survives. The question is what form it takes.
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2017
- Location
- Perth Western Australia
Wow GOODLUCK trying to remove guns from public under wartime powers being active.
That sounds weird. So much for a gun behind every blade of grass in America as a deterrence. Personally I don't see much success there. Probably end up being another revolution - civil war.
That sounds weird. So much for a gun behind every blade of grass in America as a deterrence. Personally I don't see much success there. Probably end up being another revolution - civil war.
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2015
You are mostly correct. I seriously doubt that the original with internet, meaning telephone lines, like the dial up would survive an attack at all.
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2022
- Location
- Tropical Queensland, Australia
You are right in that phone lines would be unlikely to survive. The long copper cables of old world technology would act like a giant antenna and ensure EMP surge. Might be better chance of survival where there is optic fibre backbone but then one has to consider the impact on the electronics connected. It would all be at risk. The result would be fibre trunk that survives but maybe nothing else. Radio equipment not connected and inside Faraday cage of an earthed steel cabinet with nil external connection would probably be best bet so hence why I think radio connections would be best bet if the worst happened.