I’ve watched Legally Blonde about a dozen times — it tickles me. Elle Woods, as played by Reese Witherspoon, is just so damned chipper! And a lot smarter than Monica Goodling, it appears. But then Elle served the Gods of Fashion, not the Smiters envisioned by Pat Robertson at Regent University.
As usual, FireDogLake did the heavy lifting on the hearings — and here’s some of the blow-back … I’ll start with Jon Stewart, brilliant as always, and you’ll get to see and hear our gal Monica. Then Greg Palast, who says he’s GOT the smoking gun if somebody would just listen! Help him out by passing his article on to your lawmaker.
Here are editorials and, last, MSM.
Jude
As Goodling As It Gets
Jon Stewert video
The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom
And The No Longer ‘Missing’ Rove Emails Revealing the Cagey Scheme to Steal
2008…
Greg Palast, Special to The BRAD BLOG
5/24/2007
This Monica revealed something hotter — much hotter — than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One….And the Committee members didn’t even know it.
Goodling testified that Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin’s “involvement in ‘caging’ voters” in 2004.
Huh?? Tim Griffin? “Caging”???
The perplexed committee members hadn’t a clue — and asked no substantive questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found “the keys to the kingdom,” they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front of their perplexed faces.
The keys: the missing emails — and missing link — that could send Griffin and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time.
Kingdom enough for ya?
But what’s ‘caging’ and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer Sampson put his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin’s involvement in it? Because it’s a felony. And a big one.
Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America’s news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d’etat that chose our President in 2004.
Here’s how caging worked, and along with Griffin’s thoughtful emails themselves you’ll understand it all in no time.
The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked “Do not forward” to voters’ homes. Letters returned (”caged”) were used as evidence to block these voters’ right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and — you got to love this — American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.
Why weren’t these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation — and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.
How do I know? I have the caging lists…
I have them because they are attached to the emails Rove insists can’t be found. I have the emails. 500 of them — sent to our team at BBC after the Rove-bots accidentally sent them to a web domain owned by our friend John Wooden.
Here’s what you need to know — and the Committee would have discovered, if only they’d asked:
‘Caging’ voters is a crime, a go-to-jail felony.
Griffin wasn’t “involved” in the caging, Ms. Goodling. Griffin, Rove’s right-hand man (right-hand claw), was directing the illegal purge and challenge campaign. How do I know? It’s in the email I got. Thanks. And it’s posted below [open link.]
On December 7, 2006, the ragin’, cagin’ Griffin was named, on Rove’s personal demand, US Attorney for Arkansas. Perpetrator became prosecutor.
The committee was perplexed about Monica’s panicked admission and accusations about the caging list because the US press never covered it. That’s because, as Griffin wrote to Goodling in yet another email (dated February 6 of this year, and also posted below), their caging operation only made the news on BBC London: busted open, Griffin bitched, by that “British reporter,” Greg Palast.
There’s no pride in this. Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet — except the USA — only because America’s news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d’etat that chose our President in 2004.
And now, not bothering to understand the astonishing revelation in Goodling’s confessional, they are missing the real story behind the firing of the US attorneys. It’s not about removing prosecutors disloyal to Bush, it’s about replacing those who refused to aid the theft of the vote in 2004 with those prepared to burgle it again in 2008.
Now that they have the keys, let’s see if they can put them in the right door. The clock is ticking ladies and gents…
(Ed Note: You can easily contact your Congress Members to call and/or email them this information by clicking here. Let them know they need to take action. Now. And feel free to point them towards this article, URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594)
Loyal to the White House, Not the Rule of Law
John Nichols, The Nation
5/24/07
Regent University School of Law graduate Monica Goodling, whose meteoric rise to the highest levels of the Department of Justice put her in a position to aid and abet a program of politicizing prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys, opened her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday by invoking her fifth amendment right to refuse to make statements that might incriminate her. Committee chair John Conyers, D-Michigan, then delivered to Goodling a grant of immunity that allowed her to do something that is rare indeed for Bush administration true believers: tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Goodling was right to be concerned about incriminating herself. Under questioning from Democratic committee members, the former political commissar for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales repeatedly admitted to “crossing the line” that separates legal and illegal activities by federal officials. In so doing she offered another powerful insight into the way in which the Bush administration, to which Goodling says she was unquestioningly loyal, has replaced the rule of law with political calculations.
Whether Goodling met the “truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth” mandate remains open to question. Like her former boss, she suffered from convenient memory loss at times regarding critical questions. But Goodling’s “I don’t recalls” came far less frequently than those of Gonzales. And she was willing to take a good deal more responsibility for what went awry in the Department of Justice than has the man who remains, tenuously, in charge of the agency.
Goodling opened her testimony with a declaration that she had “no desire” to speak negatively about those she worked with in the Bush administration. Then, she proceeded to point fingers of blame at members of what she described as her DOJ “family,” including those who had revealed details of her role in the scandal over the hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys for political reasons. Goodling
* confirmed that former DOJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson had compiled a list of U.S. Attorneys who would be fired — apparently for being insufficiently partisan in their inquiries and prosecutions — and that Gonzales had been aware of the list and involved in meetings about it,
* placed White House political czar Karl Rove in a room where the firings were discussed,
* acknowledged that, as early as 2OO5, there was talk about forcing U.S. Attorneys out to make way for White House favorites and
* explained how U.S,.Attorneys were “rewarded” for helping to promote and defend the Patriot Act. at a time when that law was under attack as an assault on basic liberties.
The former White House liaison for the DOJ told the committee she never attended meetings with top White House aides involving the areas for which she was responsible. At several turns, Goodling portrayed herself as a strangely disconnected and powerless underling who was left out of meetings, told to stay in the shadows, sent away from important sessions in taxis and otherwise neglected, dismissed and overlooked. Yes, she may have had the title of Director of Public Affairs, but, “no,” Goodling told the committee, she was “not a decision maker.” Rather, she at one point presented herself as a sort of departmental cheerleader who would send out emails to political appointees asking “Hey, who wants to go up to the White House…?”
But the woman, who earned her law degree from a school that teaches courses on how lawyers in positions of authority can use their power to identify and punish “sins,” confirmed the crisis in the Bush administration’s Justice Department, and the manner in which she perpetuated it.
“I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions, and may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions,” Goodling told the committee early in her testimony. She said she made “snap judgments” to block qualified applicants because they were Democrats. Only under intense questioning from committee members Linda Sanchez, D-California, and Jerry Nadler, D-New York, did she offer the details and perspective that made it clear her so-called “mistakes” were part of a deliberate and ongoing pattern of politicization of the hiring process at the nation’s chief law-enforcement agency.
Goodling, a former opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee, explicitly admitted to applying political and ideological litmus tests when interviewing applicants for key federal positions.
Even when Republican committee members attempted to diminish the significance of her admissions, Goodling repeatedly acknowledged that she had “crossed lines” of right and wrong.
Later, Goodling said that, despite invoking the Fifth, she did not believe she had violated any laws. In fact, the Hatch Act and a host of other civil service laws and federal rules make it clear that the aggressive politicization of federal agencies is illegal. Under questioning from Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott, Goodling admitted as much — albeit, grudgingly.
Noting that the former Justice Department aide has acknowledged making personnel decisions based on political considerations, Scott asked, “Do you believe that it was legal or illegal for you to take those political considerations into account?”
Goodling stumbled several times before admitting, “The best I can say is that I know I took political considerations into account.”
“Do you believe they were illegal or legal?” asked Scott.
“I don’t believe I intended to commit a crime,” she answered, confirming that Regent University graduates are indeed trained to speak in a lawyerly manner.
Scott pressed: “Did you break the law? Is it against the law to take those considerations into account?”
“I believe I crossed the lines,” Goodling replied, “but I didn’t mean to.”
By “crossed the lines,” Scott asked, did she mean that she had violated federal civil service laws?
Goodling responded: “I crossed the line of the civil service rules.”
Scott clarified that those “rules” are, in fact, “laws.”
The congressman got to the point of the inquiry into U.S. Attorney hiring and firing issues when he said that it appeared that in Alberto Gonzales’ Department of Justice “the culture of loyalty to the administration was more important than loyalty to the rule of law.”
Nothing in Monica Goodling’s testimony contradicted that impression.
The Unreported Story
snipped from Froomkin
5/24/07
The Bush administration policy of applying a political litmus test to civil-service hires in sensitive positions is one of the great open secrets in Washington. Yet it’s been almost unreported.
One significant exception was this story by Charlie Savage in the Boston Globe in July. He wrote: “The Bush administration is quietly remaking the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights, according to job application materials obtained by the Globe.”
That story, along with Savage’s ground-breaking coverage of Bush’s signing statements, won him the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting…
Witness for the Prosecutors
New York Times Editorial
May 24, 2007
It would have been naïve to think that Monica Goodling, a right-wing true believer and onetime Republican opposition researcher, was going to blow the whistle on the United States attorney scandal. But Ms. Goodling made some disturbing admissions yesterday, even as she strained to present every fact in the most favorable light to her Bush administration allies and claimed convenient memory lapses. Ms. Goodling admitted to politicizing the Justice Department in ways that certainly seem illegal; she made clear that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied at a critical point in the investigation; and she gave Congress all the reason it needs to compel Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, to testify about what they know.
In her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Ms. Goodling removed all doubt about whether partisan politics infected the Justice Department’s treatment of federal prosecutors. She admitted that she investigated the party affiliations, and even campaign contributions, of applicants for prosecutor, and other nonpolitical jobs. “I know I crossed the line,” she said of her actions, which may have violated federal law. Her admission that partisan politics was used to hire people only makes it more likely that it was also used to fire people.
Ms. Goodling appeared to be straining to make her testimony helpful to Mr. Gonzales, but when backed into a corner, she conceded that he had lied about his role in the scandal. At a press conference in March, he said he had not seen any memos or participated in any discussions about the firings. But Ms. Goodling made clear that he was briefed and attended a key meeting.
Ms. Goodling was an odd witness. She was one of the most powerful officials in the Justice Department, but claimed to be a minor player who barely knew what was going on around her. “At heart, I am a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing and tries to treat people kindly along the way,” said the 33-year-old Ms. Goodling. She presented herself as an innocent, yet testified only under immunity and admitted to apparently illegal practices.
The only people odder than Ms. Goodling were the House Republicans who rushed to praise her. Even in these partisan times, a Justice Department official who admitted to her level of wrongdoing ought to draw bipartisan condemnation.
As with other witnesses, notably Mr. Gonzales, Ms. Goodling’s memory lapses were not credible. On questions that made her uncomfortable, the past was a blur. But on others, her recall was remarkable, as when she denied misinforming Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty about the dismissal of the attorneys before he testified to Congress.
Ms. Goodling said she did not know how prosecutors were added to the list of those to be fired. Kyle Sampson, Mr. Gonzales’s former chief of staff, and the keeper of the list, has said the same thing. So have Mr. Gonzales and Mr. McNulty. They may think that if no one owns up, the scandal will go away. But since the list was by all accounts a joint Justice Department and White House effort, Congress has no choice but to question under oath the two people who are in the best position to shed light on the mystery: Mr. Rove and Ms. Miers.
Ms. Goodling made clear that the Justice Department was shamefully politicized. Congress needs to find out how far it went, and who was involved. Then it can begin the long and difficult process of trying to restore the department’s integrity and reputation.
The New Establishment
How Evangelicals Became Part of Washington’s Fabric
Hanna Rosin
Friday, May 25, 2007
To the Bush haters of America, the young Monica Goodling is a footnote of this wretched era, one of the many Washington types that they’ll be happy to get rid of come January 2009: Venal Vice President, Ex-Lobbyists Turned Regulators and, in Goodling’s case, Young Evangelicals in High Places.
Until she appeared before the House Judiciary Committee this week to testify about her role in the Justice Department firing scandal, Goodling had been mocked on the Internet and on late-night TV as a certain type: one of a “bunch of hayseeds” staffing the administration, as HBO comedian Bill Maher called her.
Goodling graduated from Messiah College (”home of the Fighting Christies”) and the law school at Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson (”a televangelist’s diploma mill”) — both Maher’s terms.
But the joke is on Maher: The age of the televangelist is as dead as Jerry Falwell, and the Regent Web site treats Robertson like a fondly remembered patriarch from a bygone era, when it was suitable to call yourself a “fundamentalist” and scream on TV.
Goodling is part of a new generation of evangelicals ushered in by Falwell, who insisted that Christians get involved in politics. They are graduates of the exploding number of evangelical colleges, which no longer aim to create a parallel subculture but instead to train “Christian leaders to change the world,” as the Regent mission statement reads.
It used to be that being 33 and in charge of 93 U.S. attorneys would mean you’d been top of your class at Harvard or Yale or clerked at the Supreme Court. Now, Christian schools are joining that mix. Regent has had 150 of its graduates working in the White House; the school estimates that one-sixth of its alumni are in government work. Call them the Goodlings: scrubbed young ideologues, ready to serve their nation, the right’s version of the Peace Corps generation.
The image of Goodling that emerged in the hearing did not match the “hayseed” of Maher’s imagination. A colleague said that it was not unusual to find Goodling BlackBerrying at 2 a.m. or preparing briefs late into the night. Goodling described one bit of office politics as a clash between two “Type A” women in which she played the Eve Harrington character in “All About Eve” and won. “Televangelist” did not seem to be on her list of career goals.
Falwell and Robertson were outsiders and always behaved like it. Goodling’s Christian contemporaries grew up with Bush as their president, speaking their language. Even after this administration is gone, they can work for one of the more than 150 members of Congress who call themselves evangelical or dozens of conservative think tanks and activist groups. Or they can run for office: Robert McDonnell, Virginia’s attorney general, is a Regent alum. They are part of the Washington establishment now and, much to Bill Maher’s chagrin, they will be around long after Bush is gone.
Recently, I spent a lot of time among the students at Patrick Henry College, a seven-year-old school founded in much the same spirit as Regent. The students there easily matched Goodling’s description of herself as “anal retentive.” They input their daily schedules into Palm Pilots in 15-minute increments — read Bible, do crunches, take shower, study for Latin quiz. They intern at the White House. The atmosphere is much more Harvard than Bob Jones.
A 1996 study found that evangelical college students were remarkably unified in their political identification: More than two-thirds called themselves Republicans, and only 9 percent said they were Democrats. At Patrick Henry, I heard a rumor that someone had voted for John Kerry. I chased down many leads. All dead ends. If it was true, no one would publicly admit it.
While testifying this week, Goodling admitted that she had asked inappropriately partisan questions of applicants for civil service jobs. But she never asked about religion, she said. Unlike their elders, the new generation of evangelicals does not turn the cubicle into a pulpit. If they are intent on implementing God’s will, they do it with professional discretion.
It took the conservative political movement 30 years to become a fixture in American politics, and it’s taken evangelicals about the same. Like conservatives, evangelicals may remain chronically ambivalent, afflicted with a persecution complex despite their obvious successes. But they are embedded firmly enough into Washington to provide jobs for smart young Christians for generations to come.
Hanna Rosin, who covered religion for The Post, is the author of “God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America,” due out in September
Ex-Gonzales Aide Testifies, ‘I Crossed the Line’
DAVID STOUT, NYT
May 23, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 23 - The Justice Department’s former liaison to the White House testified before Congress today that she improperly weighed political factors in considering applicants for career positions in the department, and she said she was sorry.
But the former liaison, Monica M. Goodling, told the House Judiciary Committee that, contrary to public impressions, she did not play a major role in the controversial dismissals of United States attorneys last year. And she said that former Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty had misled Congress, intentionally or otherwise, in his testimony about the firings by minimizing the role of the White House.
Mr. McNulty testified in February that most of those dismissed had been let go for performance reasons, and that Ms. Goodling had not given him all the pertinent information about the dismissals.
“The allegation is false,” she testified. “I did not withhold information from the deputy. To the contrary, I worked diligently to compile and provide the deputy with dozens of pages of statistics and other information that I thought he was likely to need, based on the questions that were being asked at that time.”
As for her own role in Justice Department hirings and firings, she said, “I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions, and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions, and I regret those mistakes.”
When the hearing got under way, there were suggestions that Ms. Goodling, who is 33, may have acted illegally, rather than just improperly. In any event, the grant of immunity under which she testified protected her from self-incrimination, so long as she told the truth, which she swore to do.
Referring to Mr. McNulty, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 6 that none of the ousters had been politically motivated, she said: “I think in some ways he simply didn’t communicate all that he knew. And I’m certainly not saying that he did it deliberately.”"I believe the deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision,” Ms. Goodling testified today, alluding to the installation of a protégé of the White House political adviser Karl Rove as a prosecutor in Arkansas.
“So would it be fair to say that you believe that Deputy McNulty knew about the White House’s role in the firing of the U.S. attorneys?” said Representative Linda Sanchez, Democrat of California.
Ms. Goodling responded somewhat indirectly, saying finally that she thought Mr. McNulty’s testimony “didn’t fully express the fact that the White House was involved in the sign-off of the plan at the end.”
The Associated Press reported that Mr. McNulty had no immediate comment on Ms. Goodling’s testimony.The House Judiciary Committee session today was the latest in a string of Congressional hearings about the firings of United States attorneys last year. President Bush and some Republicans have said the firings were proper and unremarkable, given that United States attorneys are political appointees, but many Democrats have alleged that the moves were meant to punish prosecutors who were seen as too zealous in going after Republicans or not vigorous enough in pursuing Democrats.
The long-running controversy has brought almost daily calls for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to step down. His critics in both parties have said that his own accounts of not being deeply involved in the dismissals are either hard to believe or indicative of an executive who does not know what is going on around him, or both.
Representative John D. Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who heads the House Judiciary Committee, said he hoped other witnesses would come forward to help lawmakers determine whether Justice Department prosecutors had been “pawns in the game of politics.”
Ms. Goodling refused to testify until she was given immunity from prosecution - not because she thought she committed any crime, her lawyer has said, but because she feared being vulnerable in the politically charged atmosphere over the firing of the attorneys.
Ms. Goodling said that in the course of her five years at the Justice Department, she interviewed hundreds of job applicants, most of them for positions subject to partisan political appointment. “But some were applicants for certain categories of career positions,” she went on, alluding to workers who are supposed to function free of naked political considerations.
“In every case, I tried to act in good faith, and for the purpose of ensuring that the department was staffed by well-qualified individuals who were supportive of the attorney general’s views, priorities and goals,” she said, before acknowledging that she might have gone too far in asking overtly political questions of some career applicants.
But Representative Bobby Scott, Democrat of Virginia, was not satisfied. “Did you break the law?” he asked. “Is it against the law to take those considerations into account?”
“I believe I crossed the line, but I didn’t mean to,” she replied.
And while she said she had interviewed hundreds of prospective employees, she said it was just not true that, as the White House liaison, she held “the keys to the kingdom.” Nor, she said, did she recall having any conversations with Mr. Rove or with the White House counsel, Harriet Miers, about prospective United States attorneys.
D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to the attorney general, compiled the list of prosecutors to be fired, Ms. Goodling testified. Mr. Sampson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March that Mr. Gonzales himself had been deeply involved in the plans to fire the prosecutors, despite his assertions to the contrary.
Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin and a former chairman of the judiciary panel, suggested early on that the entire controversy over the firings had been overblown. “There ain’t no fish in this water,” he said.
Still, today’s testimony seemed unlikely to quiet the controversy surrounding Mr. Gonzales and the Justice Department. Some department employees are said to be embarrassed on their agency’s behalf because they consider it very unseemly for a Justice Department aide to have to invoke Fifth Amendment rights against compelled self-incrimination, as Ms. Goodling has done.
“Testifying is, as I’m finding out right now, a difficult thing,” said Ms. Goodling. “I’m sure there will be things that I don’t remember.”
Justice official: Ex-Gonzales aide broke down over firings
Laurie Kellman, AP
May 23, 2007
WASHINGTON — Monica Goodling, Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales’ former White House liaison, broke down in tears in a colleague’s office as a furor rose about her department’s firings of eight federal prosecutors, according to interview excerpts released Tuesday.
” ‘All I ever wanted to do was serve this president and this administration and this department,’ ” Goodling said during a March 8 conversation, according to Associate Deputy Atty. Gen. David Margolis.
Margolis told House and Senate investigators of the conversation in a meeting this month.
During the 30- to 45-minute encounter, Goodling proceeded “to bawl her eyes out” and repeat the phrase, Margolis said.
His account is expected to be part of a congressional hearing Wednesday at which Goodling is expected to testify under a grant of immunity.
Democrats and some Republicans say Gonzales, Goodling and other top Justice Department officials operated as if they served both the White House and the department, undercutting the agency’s tradition of independence from political matters.
Margolis told the investigators that Goodling repeated the phrase about serving President Bush, the administration and the Justice Department.
“She was certainly shaken to her core,” he added during the interview May 1.
The incident came two days after six of the fired prosecutors told the House and Senate Judiciary committees that they were dismissed without explanation and leaned on by Justice Department officials to keep quiet. At the same hearing March 6, Associate Deputy Atty. Gen. William Moschella listed the performance flaws that he said led to their firings.
The session ignited the questions about the prosecutor firings into a full-blown furor that has imperiled Gonzales’ job and cost Goodling and other Justice Department officials theirs.
Goodling has refused to testify under her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, saying that she suspected the House Judiciary Committee had set a perjury trap for her.
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, is expected to offer her immunity Wednesday; she is expected to accept the grant and testify.
Goodling played a major role in drawing up the list of which prosecutors to fire, according to e-mails released by the Justice Department. The communications show she was in frequent contact about the matter with White House political officials.
The transcripts paint a vivid image of the damage wrought in the top levels of the Justice Department by the prosecutor firings and subsequent questions they raised. Many lawmakers of both parties say that the controversy has weakened Gonzales too much to lead the department.
White House press secretary Tony Snow disagreed.
“I don’t think he’s a distraction,” Snow said, adding Gonzales is doing his job effectively.
Congress, meanwhile cleared legislation Tuesday that would curb Bush’s power to appoint prosecutors indefinitely, resolving one controversy linked to the firing of the prosecutors.
The 306-114 vote gave the House’s blessing to the Senate-passed bill, readying it for Bush’s expected signature. It will close a loophole that Democrats say could have permitted the White House to reward GOP loyalists with plum jobs as U.S. attorneys.
Senate Sets Mid-June Vote on Gonzales
LAURIE KELLMAN, The Associated Press
Thursday, May 24, 2007
WASHINGTON — President Bush said Thursday he would address any wrongdoing uncovered by congressional or other investigations related to the firings of eight federal prosecutors, but added that new allegations have not swayed his support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
“If there’s wrongdoing, it will be taken care of,” Bush told reporters at a Rose Garden news conference. Congress and the Justice Department are conducting separate probes into the firings, which Democrats say were improperly political.
The Democrat-led Senate, meanwhile, scheduled a no-confidence vote on Gonzales in mid-June.
“It is the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people,” it reads. Chiefly sponsored by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, the measure contains no preamble setting out the reasons behind the resolution, an omission made in hopes of drawing more votes.
With five Republican senators having already called on Gonzales to step down and many more walking up to that rhetorical line, Schumer predicted the resolution would win at least the 60 votes required to beat a filibuster. But some Republicans said they might offer competing no-confidence resolutions that could complicate or block the Democrat-sponsored measure.
Bush said the questions about Gonzales’ conduct are “kinda being drug out” for political reasons and urged House and Senate committees to wrap up their hearings and get on with legislative business.
Asked whether he still supports Gonzales, Bush replied: “Yes, I’ve got confidence in Al Gonzales doing the job.”
A day earlier, Gonzales’ former White House liaison recounted what she called an “uncomfortable” conversation with the attorney general in which he tried to review the events leading up to the firings. The mid-March meeting, Monica Goodling recalled in a daylong House Judiciary Committee hearing, came well after Gonzales and top Justice officials knew they would be called to testify about those same events.
Democrats have said Goodling’s account makes it sound like Gonzales was trying to coach her and get their stories straight. The Justice Department denies that, contending that Gonzales was trying to comfort Goodling at a difficult time.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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May 25th, 2007
Heckuva name for “coup” … doncha think? Below you’ll find news about the latest plans to suspend government due to “emergency,” along with some further concerns about databases on citizens, etc. All nasty business. The article about the camps was snipped from the Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007; open the link to see them all. The entirety of the policy itself is posted last.
The latest Gallup poll finds only 25% of our citizens satisfied with how its going in the US of A — a startling low. I’ve seen polls giving the Dubby himself as few as 23 approval points. Bush is so dead in the water domestically he’s had to throw in with the Dem’s to get an immigration bill — one which looks likely to split the Republican party into warring factions, and finally settle itself into a national conversation without passage … a conversation that’s been put off too long. Meanwhile, the constant drone of the candidates taking shots at each other provides a backdrop against which the Bushie timeline can’t help but come into focus. As always, a cornered Dubby is a cranky one … and a desperate cabal is a vicious one.
Perhaps the saving Grace in all of this is the Keystone Cop factor — the Bushies seldom pull anything off without a hitch and usually it’s a big, glaring mess of a fumble … good for us, bad for them. As well, the nation is no longer dozing in its easy chair — a couple of years ago, this might have swept us away wrapped in a flag. It would be a good deal more difficult now. And finally, it’s not in the American character to go gently into that good night … if the Dubby wants another American Revolution on his hands, this would do it. Keep praying for all that’s dedicated to darkness to fail, for Light to dawn in the hearts of those trapped in this density. And don’t let this scare you — possible futures become probable when we give our power away to fear.
Jude
Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency
Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive
May 18, 2007
With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.
In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a “catastrophic emergency.”
Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government.”
He laid this all out in a document entitled “National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51″ and “Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20.”
The White House released it on May 9.
Other than a discussion on Daily Kos led off by a posting by Leo Fender, and a pro-forma notice in a couple of mainstream newspapers, this document has gone unremarked upon.
The subject of the document is entitled “National Continuity Policy.”
It defines a “catastrophic emergency” as “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 function.”
This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include “localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies.”
The document emphasizes the need to ensure “the continued function of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government,” it states.
But it says flat out: “The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.”
The document waves at the need to work closely with the other two branches, saying there will be “a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government.” But this effort will be “coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers.”
Among the efforts coordinated by the President would ensuring the capability of the three branches of government to “provide for orderly succession” and “appropriate transition of leadership.”
The document designates a National Continuity Coordinator, who would be the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.
Currently holding that post is Frances Fragos Townsend.
She is required to develop a National Continuity Implementation Plan and submit it within 90 days.
As part of that plan, she is not only to devise procedures for the Executive Branch but also give guidance to “state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure.”
The secretary of Homeland Security is also directed to develop planning guidance for “private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators,” as well as state, local, territorial, and tribal governments.
The document gives the Vice President a role in implementing the provisions of the contingency plans.
“This directive shall be implanted in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 USC 19), with the consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved.”
The document also contains “classified Continuity Annexes.” ++
Bush Plans Dictatorship
Margaret Kimberley
May 21 2007
“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”
~ George W. Bush
Bush uttered those very unfunny words on December 18, 2000. On that day the president-elect went to capitol hill to meet with Congressional leaders and emerged from the meeting flipping them and the American people this rhetorical bird.
The president is making good on those words and there hasn’t been a peep out of Congress or the press. In a document released on May 9, 2007 entitled “National Continuity Policy,” Bush makes good on his sick fantasy. In case of “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 function” Bush will control the entire U.S. government, not just the federal branch.
It isn’t really surprising. Bush decides who is an enemy combatant, a person without legal rights, and who should be spied upon.
If ever there was a moment for conspiracy theories, this is it. Will there be a phony terror attack, or a declaration of war against Iran? We don’t know what the trigger will be but it is time to be afraid.
Actually it is time for impeachment. Bush’s unpopularity makes him particularly dangerous. So does the acquiescence of the media and the silence of the Democrats. State legislatures have the right to begin the impeachment process but they have been smacked down by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
We are screwed. The phrase may be inelegant, but it says it all. Maybe we will all end up in Guantanamo. Who knows? The National Continuity Policy contains “classified continuity annexes.” WTF!? As I said, we are screwed. ++
#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US
Project Censored
Sources:
New America Media, January 31, 2006
Title: “Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps”
Author: Peter Dale Scott
New America Media, February 21, 2006
Title: “10-Year US Strategic Plan for Detention Camps Revives Proposals from Oliver North”
Author: Peter Dale Scott
Consortiium, February 21, 2006
Title: “Bush’s Mysterious ‘New Programs’”
Author: Nat Parry
Buzzflash
Title: “Detention Camp Jitters”
Author: Maureen Farrell
Community Evaluator: Dr. Gary Evans
Student Researchers: Sean Hurley and Caitlyn Peele
Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) announced on January 24, 2006 that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build detention camps in the United States.
According to a press release posted on the Halliburton website, “The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.”
What little coverage the announcement received focused on concerns about Halliburton’s reputation for overcharging U.S. taxpayers for substandard services.
Less attention was focused on the phrase “rapid development of new programs” or what type of programs might require a major expansion of detention centers, capable of holding 5,000 people each. Jamie Zuieback, spokeswoman for ICE, declined to elaborate on what these “new programs” might be.
Only a few independent journalists, such as Peter Dale Scott, Maureen Farrell, and Nat Parry have explored what the Bush administration might actually have in mind.
Scott speculates that the “detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.” He recalled that during the Reagan administration, National Security Council aide Oliver North organized the Rex-84 “readiness exercise,” which contemplated the Federal Emergency Management Agency rounding up and detaining 400,000 “refugees” in the event of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the U.S.
North’s exercise, which reportedly contemplated possible suspension of the Constitution, led to a line of questioning during the Iran-Contra Hearings concerning the idea that plans for expanded internment and detention facilities would not be confined to “refugees” alone.
It is relevant, says Scott, that in 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his desire to see camps for U.S. citizens deemed to be “enemy combatants.” On February 17, 2006, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the harm being done to the country’s security, not just by the enemy, but also by what he called “news informers” who needed to be combated in “a contest of wills.”
Since September 11 the Bush administration has implemented a number of interrelated programs that were planned in the 1980s under President Reagan. Continuity of Government (COG) proposals—a classified plan for keeping a secret “government-within-the-government” running during and after a nuclear disaster—included vastly expanded detention capabilities, warrantless eavesdropping, and preparations for greater use of martial law.
Scott points out that, while Oliver North represented a minority element in the Reagan administration, which soon distanced itself from both the man and his proposals, the minority associated with COG planning, which included Cheney and Rumsfeld, appear to be in control of the U.S. government today.
Farrell speculates that, because another terror attack is all but certain, it seems far more likely that the detention centers would be used for post-September 11-type detentions of rounded-up immigrants rather than for a sudden deluge of immigrants flooding across the border.
Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg ventures, “Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next September 11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ’special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantánamo.”
Parry notes that The Washington Post reported on February 15, 2006 that the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) central repository holds the names of 325,000 terrorist suspects, a fourfold increase since fall of 2003.
Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, an NCTC official told the Post, “Our database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA.”
As the administration scoops up more and more names, members of Congress have questioned the elasticity of Bush’s definitions for words like terrorist “affiliates,” used to justify wiretapping Americans allegedly in contact with such people or entities.
A Defense Department document, entitled the “Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support,” has set out a military strategy against terrorism that envisions an “active, layered defense” both inside and outside U.S. territory. In the document, the Pentagon pledges to “transform U.S. military forces to execute homeland defense missions in the . . . U.S. homeland.” The strategy calls for increased military reconnaissance and surveillance to “defeat potential challengers before they threaten the United States.” The plan “maximizes threat awareness and seizes the initiative from those who would harm us.”
But there are concerns, warns Parry, over how the Pentagon judges “threats” and who falls under the category of “those who would harm us.” A Pentagon official said the Counterintelligence Field Activity’s TALON program has amassed files on antiwar protesters.
In the view of some civil libertarians, a form of martial law already exists in the U.S. and has been in place since shortly after the September 11 attacks when Bush issued Military Order Number One, which empowered him to detain any noncitizen as an international terrorist or enemy combatant. Today that order extends to U.S. citizens as well.
Farrell ends her article with the conclusion that while much speculation has been generated by KBR’s contract to build huge detention centers within the U.S., “The truth is, we won’t know the real purpose of these centers unless ‘contingency plans are needed.’ And by then, it will be too late.”
UPDATE BY PETER DALE SCOTT
The contract of the Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build immigrant detention facilities is part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.” In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed similar emergency detention powers as part of a super-secret program of planning for what was euphemistically called “Continuity of Government” (COG) in the event of a nuclear disaster. At the time, Cheney was a Wyoming congressman, while Rumsfeld, who had been defense secretary under President Ford, was a businessman and CEO of the drug company G.D. Searle.
These men planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any “national security emergency,” which they defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.” Clearly September 11 would meet this definition, and did, for COG was instituted on that day. As the Washington Post later explained, the order “dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans.”
What these managers in this shadow government worked on has never been reported. But it is significant that the group that prepared ENDGAME was, as the Homeland Security document puts it, “chartered in September 2001.” For ENDGAME’s goal of a capacious detention capability is remarkably similar to Oliver North’s controversial Rex-84 “readiness exercise” for COG in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary “refugees,” in the context of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States.
UPDATE BY MAUREEN FARRELL
When the story about Kellogg, Brown and Root’s contract for emergency detention centers broke, immigration was not the hot button issue it is today. Given this, the language in Halliburton’s press release, stating that the centers would be built in the event of an “emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S.,” raised eyebrows, especially among those familiar with Rex-84 and other Reagan-era initiatives. FEMA’s former plans ‘for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps’ added to the distrust, and the second stated reason for the KBR contract, “to support the rapid development of new programs,” sent imaginations reeling.
While few in the mainstream media made the connection between KBR’s contract and previous programs, Fox News eventually addressed this issue, pooh-poohing concerns as the province of “conspiracy theories” and “unfounded” fears. My article attempted to sift through the speculation, focusing on verifiable information found in declassified and leaked documents which proved that, in addition to drawing up contingency plans for martial law, the government has conducted military readiness exercises designed to round up and detain both illegal aliens and U.S. citizens.
How concerned should Americans be? Recent reports are conflicting and confusing:
In May, 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began “Operation Return to Sender,” which involved catching illegal immigrants and deporting them. In June, however, President Bush vowed that there would soon be “new infrastructures” including detention centers designed to put an end to such “catch and release” practices.
Though Bush said he was “working with Congress to increase the number of detention facilities along our borders,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he first learned about the KBR contract through newspaper reports.
Fox News recently quoted Pepperdine University professor Doug Kmiec, who deemed detention camp concerns “more paranoia than reality” and added that KBR’s contract is most likely “something related to (Hurricane) Katrina” or “a bird flu outbreak that could spur a mass quarantine of Americans.” The president’s stated desire for the U.S. military to take a more active role during natural disasters and to enforce quarantines in the event of a bird flu outbreak, however, have been roundly denounced.
Concern over an all-powerful federal government is not paranoia, but active citizenship. As Thomas Jefferson explained, “even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” From John Adams’s Alien and Sedition Acts to FDR’s internment of Japanese Americans, the land of the free has held many contradictions and ironies. Interestingly enough, Halliburton was at the center of another historical controversy, when Lyndon Johnson’s ties to a little-known company named Kellogg, Brown and Root caused a congressional commotion—particularly after the Halliburton subsidiary won enough wartime contracts to become one of the first protested symbols of the military-industrial complex. Back then they were known as the “Vietnam builders.” The question, of course, is what they’ll be known as next.
Additional links:
” Reagan Aides and the Secret Government,” Miami Herald, July 5, 1987
“Foundations are in place for martial law in the US,” July 27, 2002, Sydney Morning Herald, [no link available]
“Halliburton Deals Recall Vietnam-Era Controversy: Cheney’s Ties to Company Reminiscent of LBJ’s Relationships,” NPR, Dec. 24, 2003
“Critics Fear Emergency Centers Could Be Used for Immigration Round-Ups,” Fox News, June 7, 2006
“U.S. officials nab 2,100 illegal immigrants in 3 weeks,” USA Today, June 14, 2006 ++
Official Identity Theft
Frances Madeson, Tom Paine
May 22, 2007
Thanks to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine’s March 9 audit report detailing the FBI’s handling of expanded surveillance powers granted under the USA PATRIOT Act, subsequent media reports, and congressional hearings called to probe the findings, we now know that the FBI’s been doing the same “heckuva job” with respect to information gathering and storage characteristic of other sectors of the Bush administration.
Though the toothpaste is out of the tube, I wonder if people generally grasp the enormity of the damage done. There is in existence an electronic database with over a half-billion records, containing information collected via extrajudicial requests made in National Security Letters, the majority of which pertain to U.S. citizens. Your banking and credit activities, telephone and internet usage records, insurance policies, post office box rental, car, boat and home ownership records could already be in the FBI’s Investigative Data Warehouse. If so, no one need inform you. If the information is incorrect, there’s no way to fix it. It is shared among 10,000 government employees at multiple agencies, and is stored for 20 years even if you have no connection whatsoever to a crime. In fact, only 65 convictions correlated to information obtained by the FBI from over 143,000 NSL demands made during 2003-2005.
When the Patriot Act was reauthorized in March 2006, I asked my senators why they voted in favor of such obviously heinous legislation. Schumer’s office promptly sent an auto-reply message thanking me for my inquiry. “It makes me proud to know that my constituents take an active role in our government by corresponding with me, and I look forward to responding to your concerns in greater detail.” Fifteen months later, that would make two of us.
In August 2006, Senator Clinton sent a two-page letter describing her efforts to improve the act with stronger citizen safeguards. “Ultimately, the Congress reached a bipartisan reauthorization compromise. I voted in favor of this reauthorization compromise, although I did so with some reluctance. The compromise does not address all of my concerns regarding the protection of civil liberties and the sensible allocation of homeland security funds. However, when measured against the original Patriot Act, the compromise is a positive step forward, and so I supported it.” (Sigh.)
Lack of congressional oversight contributed to this horror show and without sustained citizen pressure we can only expect more of the same. Fortunately, on April 11 a letter signed by 69 courageous citizen organizations representing millions of Americans was sent to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid providing a curative roadmap for reform. (I found the text on the downsizedc.org website, but perhaps I missed the congressional leaders’ written response outlining their timeline for addressing these issues?) On April 18 the ACLU and other privacy groups met with the FBI to express the view that the self-corrective measures being proposed were insufficient to the task. They could have saved the carfare. On May 1, citizen groups were back testifying before the Senate Select Subcommittee on Intelligence, protesting administration-proposed amendments to “modernize” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a euphemism Orwell would have been proud to coin, in which “modernize” actually means pardon wrongdoing and gut judicial checks on more government surveillance of us.
We look to Congress for remedies, and soon. While days, weeks, and now months have passed since the issuance of the Inspector General’s audit report, how many thousands more NSLs have been delivered accompanied by their repugnant gag orders? How many additional unjustifiable intrusions into our privacy will be tolerated by our representatives in Washington? Combined with NSA illegal wiretapping, ever-expanding definitions of “domestic terrorism,” and initiatives to promote national identity cards, a truly horrifying and wholly un-American landscape is on the immediate horizon.
None of this is inevitable; it happens only if we let it happen. The more this administration and their would-be successors celebrate the savagery of Guantanamo and call for its expansion (Romney), sanction waterboarding (Guiliani), and lay Baghdadian waste to our desire for an enduring American democracy, the more we must and will morph from our mundane selves into mini-Jeffersons and Betsy Rosses, stitching our homespun flags and stoking the fires of liberty.
Personally, I’m resolute. I’m not a child, slave, or extra in their video game fantasies. I’m a grown American woman—hale, hearty, and up for this fight for my nation’s soul—and try as they will to debase that, it still means something beautiful to me. ++
Frances Madeson is the author of a new comic novel, Cooperative Village, which chronicles the travails of a woman who becomes subject to the USA PATRIOT Act when her library card goes astray.
The Directives
Office of the Press Secretary
May 9, 2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51
HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20
Subject: National Continuity Policy
Purpose
(1) This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes “National Essential Functions,” prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.
Definitions
(2) In this directive:
(a) “Category” refers to the categories of executive departments and agencies listed in Annex A to this directive;
(b) “Catastrophic Emergency” means 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;
(c) “Continuity of Government,” or “COG,” means a coordinated effort within the Federal Government’s executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency;
(d) “Continuity of Operations,” or “COOP,” means an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission-Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies;
(e) “Enduring Constitutional Government,” or “ECG,” means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;
(f) “Executive Departments and Agencies” means the executive departments enumerated in 5 U.S.C. 101, independent establishments as defined by 5 U.S.C. 104(1), Government corporations as defined by 5 U.S.C . 103(1), and the United States Postal Service;
(g) “Government Functions” means the collective functions of the heads of executive departments and agencies as defined by statute, regulation, presidential direction, or other legal authority, and the functions of the legislative and judicial branches;
(h) “National Essential Functions,” or “NEFs,” means that subset of Government Functions that are necessary to lead and sustain the Nation during a catastrophic emergency and that, therefore, must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities; and
(i) “Primary Mission Essential Functions,” or “PMEFs,” means those Government Functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency.
Policy
(3) It is the policy of the United States to maintain a comprehensive and effective continuity capability composed of Continuity of Operations and Continuity of Government programs in order to ensure the preservation of our form of government under the Constitution and the continuing performance of National Essential Functions under all conditions.
Implementation Actions
(4) Continuity requirements shall be incorporated into daily operations of all executive departments and agencies. As a result of the asymmetric threat environment, adequate warning of potential emergencies that could pose a significant risk to the homeland might not be available, and therefore all continuity planning shall be based on the assumption that no such warning will be received. Emphasis will be placed upon geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to increase survivability and maintain uninterrupted Government Functions. Risk management principles shall be applied to ensure that appropriate operational readiness decisions are based on the probability of an attack or other incident and its consequences.
(5) The following NEFs are the foundation for all continuity programs and capabilities and represent the overarching responsibilities of the Federal Government to lead and sustain the Nation during a crisis, and therefore sustaining the following NEFs shall be the primary focus of the Federal Government leadership during and in the aftermath of an emergency that adversely affects the performance of Government Functions:
(a) Ensuring the continued functioning of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government;
(b) Providing leadership visible to the Nation and the world and maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people;
(c) Defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and preventing or interdicting attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;
(d) Maintaining and fostering effective relationships with foreign nations;
(e) Protecting against threats to the homeland and bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;
(f) Providing rapid and effective response to and recovery from the domestic consequences of an attack or other incident;
(g) Protecting and stabilizing the Nation’s economy and ensuring public confidence in its financial systems; and
(h) Providing for critical Federal Government services that address the national health, safety, and welfare needs of the United States.
(6) The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination.
(7) For continuity purposes, each executive department and agency is assigned to a category in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities in support of the Federal Government’s ability to sustain the NEFs. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall serve as the President’s lead agent for coordinating overall continuity operations and activities of executive departments and agencies, and in such role shall perform the responsibilities set forth for the Secretary in sections 10 and 16 of this directive.
(8) The National Continuity Coordinator, in consultation with the heads of appropriate executive departments and agencies, will lead the development of a National Continuity Implementation Plan (Plan), which shall include prioritized goals and objectives, a concept of operations, performance metrics by which to measure continuity readiness, procedures for continuity and incident management activities, and clear direction to executive department and agency continuity coordinators, as well as guidance to promote interoperability of Federal Government continuity programs and procedures with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate. The Plan shall be submitted to the President for approval not later than 90 days after the date of this directive.
(9) Recognizing that each branch of the Federal Government is responsible for its own continuity programs, an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall ensure that the executive branch’s COOP and COG policies in support of ECG efforts are appropriately coordinated with those of the legislative and judicial branches in order to ensure interoperability and allocate national assets efficiently to maintain a functioning Federal Government.
(10) Federal Government COOP, COG, and ECG plans and operations shall be appropriately integrated with the emergency plans and capabilities of State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to promote interoperability and to prevent redundancies and conflicting lines of authority. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall coordinate the integration of Federal continuity plans and operations with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.
(11) Continuity requirements for the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and executive departments and agencies shall include the following:
(a) The continuation of the performance of PMEFs during any emergency must be for a period up to 30 days or until normal operations can be resumed, and the capability to be fully operational at alternate sites as soon as possible after the occurrence of an emergency, but not later than 12 hours after COOP activation;
(b) Succession orders and pre-planned devolution of authorities that ensure the emergency delegation of authority must be planned and documented in advance in accordance with applicable law;
(c) Vital resources, facilities, and records must be safeguarded, and official access to them must be provided;
(d) Provision must be made for the acquisition of the resources necessary for continuity operations on an emergency basis;
(e) Provision must be made for the availability and redundancy of critical communications capabilities at alternate sites in order to support connectivity between
and among key government leadership, internal elements, other executive departments and agencies, critical partners, and the public;
(f) Provision must be made for reconstitution capabilities that allow for recovery from a catastrophic emergency and resumption of normal operations; and
(g) Provision must be made for the identification, training, and preparedness of personnel capable of relocating to alternate facilities to support the continuation of the performance of PMEFs.
(12) In order to provide a coordinated response to escalating threat levels or actual emergencies, the Continuity of Government Readiness Conditions (COGCON) system establishes executive branch continuity program readiness levels, focusing on possible threats to the National Capital Region. The President will determine and issue the COGCON Level. Executive departments and agencies shall comply with the requirements and assigned responsibilities under the COGCON program. During COOP activation, executive departments and agencies shall report their readiness status to the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary’s designee.
(13) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall:
(a) Conduct an annual assessment of executive department and agency continuity funding requests and performance data that are submitted by executive departments and agencies as part of the annual budget request process, in order to monitor progress in the implementation of the Plan and the execution of continuity budgets;
(b) In coordination with the National Continuity Coordinator, issue annual continuity planning guidance for the development of continuity budget requests; and
(c) Ensure that heads of executive departments and agencies prioritize budget resources for continuity capabilities, consistent with this directive.
(14) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall:
(a) Define and issue minimum requirements for continuity communications for executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President;
(b) Establish requirements for, and monitor the development, implementation, and maintenance of, a comprehensive communications architecture to integrate continuity components, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President; and
(c) Review quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities, as prepared pursuant to section 16(d) of this directive or otherwise, and report the results and recommended remedial actions to the National Continuity Coordinator.
(15) An official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall:
(a) Advise the President, the Chief of Staff to the President, the APHS/CT, and the APNSA on COGCON operational execution options; and
(b) Consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security in order to ensure synchronization and integration of continuity activities among the four categories of executive departments and agencies.
(16) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall:
(a) Coordinate the implementation, execution, and assessment of continuity operations and activities;
(b) Develop and promulgate Federal Continuity Directives in order to establish continuity planning requirements for executive departments and agencies;
(c) Conduct biennial assessments of individual department and agency continuity capabilities as prescribed by the Plan and report the results to the President through the APHS/CT;
(d) Conduct quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;
(e) Develop, lead, and conduct a Federal continuity training and exercise program, which shall be incorporated into the National Exercise Program developed pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-8 of December 17, 2003 (”National Preparedness”), in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;
(f) Develop and promulgate continuity planning guidance to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators;
(g) Make available continuity planning and exercise funding, in the form of grants as provided by law, to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators; and
(h) As Executive Agent of the National Communications System, develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive continuity communications architecture.
(17) The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall produce a biennial assessment of the foreign and domestic threats to the Nation’s continuity of government.
(18) The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies.
(19) Heads of executive departments and agencies shall execute their respective department or agency COOP plans in response to a localized emergency and shall:
(a) Appoint a senior accountable official, at the Assistant Secretary level, as the Continuity Coordinator for the department or agency;
(b) Identify and submit to the National Continuity Coordinator the list of PMEFs for the department or agency and develop continuity plans in support of the NEFs and the continuation of essential functions under all conditions;
(c) Plan, program, and budget for continuity capabilities consistent with this directive;
(d) Plan, conduct, and support annual tests and training, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, in order to evaluate program readiness and ensure adequacy and viability of continuity plans and communications systems; and
(e) Support other continuity requirements, as assigned by category, in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities
General Provisions
(20) This directive shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. 19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved. Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions.
(21) This directive:
(a) Shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and the authorities of agencies, or heads of agencies, vested by law, and subject to the availability of appropriations;
(b) Shall not be construed to impair or otherwise affect (i) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, and legislative proposals, or (ii) the authority of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of Defense, including the chain of command for military forces from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commander of military forces, or military command and control procedures; and
(c) Is not intended to, and does not, create any rights or benefits, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
(22) Revocation. Presidential Decision Directive 67 of October 21, 1998 (”Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations”), including all Annexes thereto, is hereby revoked.
(23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive.
(24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.
GEORGE W. BUSH ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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May 25th, 2007