regarLast week, Newsweek published a report entitled
“Inside The Military’s Top Secret
Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government,” which offers vague
descriptions of different military plans that could be put into effect if the
civilian government were to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the
potential of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to result in
such a scenario.
The article’s author, William
Arkin, largely frames these plans as new, though — buried deep within the
article — he eventually mentions that such contingency plans can be traced back
to the Eisenhower administration (though they were in place before)
and have since been developed and updated by most subsequent administrations,
largely through the issuance of executive orders. Arkin also points out that
some of these “Continuity of Government”, or COG, plans include the
“devolution” of leadership and Constitutional authority, which he notes “could
circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and
military commanders could be placed in control around America.”
Yet, there are key aspects of
COG and its development that Arkin leaves out. For instance, in his timeline on
how such plans have developed in the post-World War II era, he conveniently
fails to mention any of the Reagan administration’s major changes to COG,
including the Reagan-era Executive Order on which all current COG programs are
based. Indeed, many of the “extra-Constitutional” aspects of COG that Arkin
mentions began during the Reagan administration, when these plans were
redrafted to largely exclude members of Congress, including the Speaker of the
House, from succession plans and even moved to essentially eliminate Congress
in the event of COG being implemented, with near total power instead being
given to the executive branch and the military. It was also during this time
that the “devolution” aspect of COG was hammered out, as it created three
president-cabinet “teams” to be stationed in different parts of the country
outside of the nation’s capital. Arkin’s decision to not mention how COG was a major
focus of the Reagan administration is striking given that that
administration poured hundreds of millions of dollars annually into COG planning
and development and also conducted COG drills on a regular basis.
Furthermore, the Miami Herald revealed in 1987, that the COG
programs of that era were deeply connected to what the Herald termed
“a virtual parallel government outside the traditional cabinet departments and
agencies” that began operating “almost from the day Reagan took office” and
included military and intelligence operatives as well as many of Reagan’s
closest advisers, including then-CIA Director William Casey. The Herald further
claimed that this “parallel government” had been responsible for the
Iran-Contra scandal (i.e. “involved in arming the Nicaraguan rebels”) as well
as “the drafting of martial law plans for national emergencies,” i.e. COG, as
well as “the monitoring of U.S. citizens considered potential security risks.”
This “parallel government” planned to use COG to install itself as
the ruling power of the country and to detain potential opponents of a U.S. war
with Nicaragua in the event that the Reagan administration moved to invade the
country.
Other key players in
those Reagan-era COG developments, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney,
former CIA Director James Woosley and former Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, are also left unmentioned in Arkin’s article. Not mentioning Cheney
and Rumsfeld are particularly glaring omissions given that they were involved
in the implementation of aspects of those COG plans that went live in
the wake of the September 11 attacks, when both men were serving in key posts
in the George W. Bush administration.
While Arkin’s omission of the
role of the Reagan administration and leading neoconservatives in the
development and use of COG is significant, arguably more significant is his
failure to mention one of COG’s major components, one that has gone essentially
unmentioned by well-known media outlets for well over a decade – Main Core.
The government’s database of
“potential troublemakers”
When Reagan issued Executive Order 12656,
he created COG plans that could be implemented during “any national security
emergency,” which the E.O. loosely defines as “any occurrence, including
natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency,
that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the
United States.” E.O. 12656 also put the National Security Council (NSC) in
charge of developing and administering COG policies. The NSC official placed in
charge of this “secret” COG program was Oliver North, whose name would later
become infamous for the key role he played in the Iran-Contra Scandal. During
the Iran-Contra hearings in the late 1980s, then-Representative Jack Brooks
(D-TX) attempted to ask the
following question to North: “Colonel North, in your work at the NSC, were you
not assigned at one time to work on plans for the continuity of government in
the event of a major disaster?” Brooks, however was immediately cut off by
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who stated ” I believe that question touches upon
a highly sensitive and classified area, so may I request that you not touch
upon that, sir.” Brooks protested, but North was ultimately not required to
give an answer.
As the de facto leader
of COG development and planning during the Reagan administration, North oversaw
the creation of a controversial database that later became known simply as
“Main Core.” The Main Core database, first built using the stolen PROMIS
software (more information on PROMIS here and here), was
essentially a list of American dissidents and “potential troublemakers.” A
senior government official with a high-ranking security clearance and service in
five presidential administrations described the
database to journalist Chris Ketcham in 2008 as follows:
A database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most
trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic might be
incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the
state’ almost instantaneously.”
In 1993, Wired magazine stated
that:
Using PROMIS, sources point out, North could have drawn up lists
of anyone ever arrested for a political protest, for example, or anyone who had
ever refused to pay their taxes. Compared to PROMIS, Richard Nixon’s enemies
list or Sen. Joe McCarthy’s blacklist look downright crude.”
Main Core is the aspect of COG
that is most often ignored in reporting on these types of plans, with Arkin’s
article being just a more recent example. While most of the rare mentions of
COG in the mainstream touch on how those plans would result in the
implementation of martial law and the suspension of the Constitution, they even
more rarely — if ever — mention Main Core. Indeed, the last “mainstream”
reports on Main Core were written over a decade ago — all in 2008 — by Chris Ketcham in Radar, by Scott Horton in Harper’s and by Tim Shorrock in Salon.
Given that COG is now creeping
back into mainstream reporting, revisiting Main Core is essential as the
database still exists and has grown considerably since Oliver North first
oversaw its creation in the early 1980s. In Ketcham’s 2008 article on the
subject, he quotes then-senior government officials who said that, at the time,
the number of “unfriendly” Americans on that database was approximately 8
million. Ketcham further notes that, in the event COG is implemented, these
individuals could be subject to anything ranging from “heightened surveillance
and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”
Tim Shorrock, in his coverage
of Main Core, noted that the database was seen in use at the White House
following the September 11 attacks and there is strong evidence pointing to it
having been used by the George W. Bush administration to guide its domestic
surveillance activities in the post-9/11 era. A government official who had
told a reporter about having seen the database operational at the White House
following September 11th “turned white as a sheet” when the reporter mentioned
the name “Main Core” specifically. Shorrock’s reporting also details how Main
Core includes vast amounts of information on those “unfriendly” Americans,
including the fruits of the vast domestic surveillance programs of the NSA and
other U.S. federal agencies that continue today and are now set to be expanded
due to the current coronavirus crisis.
In a report written last year on the
involvement of U.S. and Israeli intelligence and their private sector allies in
pushing for new, troubling pre-crime programs, I noted that Main Core is not
only available to U.S. intelligence but also Israel’s intelligence apparatus
and that Israeli intelligence was involved in the creation and expansion of
Main Core. That report also detailed how Main Core was used by members of
Reagan’s NSC to blackmail members of Congress, a practice that is likely to
have continued under subsequent administrations. It also noted how Main Core
today likely involves the same software now used by every U.S. intelligence
agency and numerous other federal agencies that is marketed by Palantir, a
company created and owned by Trump ally Peter Thiel. Palantir’s software boasts
“predictive policing” capabilities and tracks a category of person using the
label “subversive,” very much in keeping with the spirit of Main Core.
Main Core and Bill Barr’s Power
Grab
Though Main Core was reportedly
in use after September 11 to target “unfriendly” individuals for increased
domestic surveillance, concern that COG plans in the age of coronavirus could
take a more drastic turn and involve the detention of Americans included in
that database now seems more plausible than ever. On Saturday, Politico reported that the Department of
Justice has demanded new “emergency powers” during the current pandemic and
these powers include being able to indefinitely detain Americans without
trial. Politico also noted that the DOJ’s controversial new
requests “span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how
cases are processed and investigated.” Per the DOJ’s requests, indefinite
detention would emerge through a new ability whereby the Attorney General or a
judge could pause court proceedings whenever courts are “fully or partially
closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other
emergency situation.”
What Politico did
not include in its report is that current Attorney General William Barr has
spent the past several months fine-tuning and implementing a “pre-crime” program. Officially known
as the “National Disruption and Early Engagement Program” (DEEP), it aims to
“identify, assess and engage” potentially violent individuals “before they
strike.” Barr first announced this program last October in an official memorandum and
therein stated that the program was to be implemented sometime over the course
of 2020 and would involve “an efficient, effective and programmatic strategy to
disrupt individuals who are mobilizing towards violence, by all lawful means.”
A training conference for that
program took place this past December and involved members of the Department of
Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation and “private sector partners.” One recent DOJ statement regarding
an arrest made last year in Nevada, claimed that that specific case was part of
the DOJ’s “National Disruption and Early Engagement Program,” suggesting that
this program is already in use — at least in some parts of the country.
In his memorandum, Barr further
notes that the program’s “early engagement tactics” were “born of the posture
we adopted with respect to terrorist threats” following the September 11
attacks, essentially stating that this pre-crime program will utilize methods
from the “War on Terror” domestically and on a massive scale.
Given the context of the
current coronavirus crisis, the DOJ’s recent request for sweeping new powers
and the role of Main Core in COG plans, one part of Barr’s pre-crime memorandum
stands out. In the part of the document where Barr outlines what actions will
be taken once an individual is deemed potentially violent or threatening, he
writes that those individuals will be subject to detention, court-ordered
mental health treatment and electronic monitoring, among other measures.
The possibility of pre-crime
detention was also present in the DOJ’s recent request for new “emergency
powers” in light of the coronavirus crisis, as it specifically asks that those
new powers apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting
pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in
criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings.”
Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers, told Politico that
the inclusion of the term “pre-arrest” likely means that “you could be arrested
and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the
civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying.”
Thus, if DOJ is granted these
new powers it has requested, the William Barr-led Department of Justice will
not only be authorized to indefinitely detain Americans without trial, it will
be able to detain them without any proof of those detainees having committed a
crime or even having plans or the intent to commit a crime. Instead, the DOJ
only needs to argue that the individual was “mobilizing towards violence,” an
extremely vague phrase that could potentially be used against anyone who
expresses discontent with the government or government policy.
Furthermore, with the FBI
having recently flagged “conspiracy theorists” (and by extension those who
distrust or question government narratives of both past and present) as a
“domestic terror threat,” the DOJ could even make the case that failure to
blindly trust government narratives presents a threat to the public order.
Given that the Main Core database in its current form contains bulk
surveillance gathered from social media, phone conversations/messaging apps and
even financial information (i.e. purchasing history, etc.) on Americans deemed
unfriendly “often for the slightest and most trivial reason,” this
unprecedented power grab by the DOJ has an authoritarian and Orwellian
potential to target legitimate dissent like never before.
With the specter of COG now
snaking its way into mainstream discourse during the coronavirus crisis, it is
essential that Americans stay vigilant, as these Orwellian and dystopian
“solutions” to allegedly protect us from the current pandemic have been in
place long before COVID-19 made its appearance on the world stage or landed on
U.S. shores.
It is also essential to
remember that COG, Main Core and the DOJ’s pre-crime program were all created
and are currently controlled by extremely corrupt and fundamentally
untrustworthy individuals who have not only been involved in innumerable scandals over the years,
but have also installed and supported some
of the most authoritarian, savage and horrific dictators the world has
ever seen. To trust them with such unprecedented and dangerous
powers in a period of national confusion and panic is tantamount to beckoning
the horrors of those dictatorships — past and present — to come home to roost.
Feature photo | A biosafety
suit hangs in front of Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, right, and Gen.
James McConville, Chief of Staff of the Army, center left, as they get a tour
of a biosafety level 4 lab training facility at U.S. Army Medical Research and
Development Command at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., March 19, 2020, where
scientists are working to help develop solutions to prevent, detect and treat
the coronavirus. Andrew Harnik | AP
Whitney Webb is
a MintPress News contributing journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to
several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron
Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio
and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for
Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
Stories published in our
Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are
republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News.
The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily
reflect MintPress News editorial policy.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/coronavirus-what-newsweek-failed-mention-continuity-government/265954/
