Our plan to eliminate poverty through human attrition
"... our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take future actions, that the powers of the President to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned".
These are the words of Stephen Miller, Chief Policy Advisor to the President Of The United States, on February 12th, 2017. These are not words we Americans expect to be emanating from the White House. What, exactly, might Stephen Miller be referring to? In the paragraphs below, I am reprinting some of an article I wrote concerning executive orders and other factors put into place by the Bush administration after the events of 9/11. This article is more relevant today than when it was written.
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... Not all of the facts may be obvious and there is good reason to dispute much of the proliferation of theories and conjecture. When the researcher sticks to the hard facts, however, one thing becomes clear - we have been lied to. The lie has enabled the passage of legislation and executive orders that provide for the possibility of dictatorial powers, media control, the shredding of the constitution and the loss of free speech in the United States. These laws and executive orders supercede the will of Congress and place unconstitutional powers in the hands of the President.
Executive orders have been used by presidents since 1789, even though there is no constitutional provision or statute allowing it.
Use of the executive order was fairly mundane until the Civil War, when Abe Lincoln used executive orders to control the press, suspend the right of trial and the right to be confronted by accusers, and other constitutional rights that were restored after the war. This precedent gave the executive order the perceived power to override Congress and the Constitution. This perceived power has, over the years, developed real power simply by an attrition of lawmakers defense (or understanding) of the constitution.
No one challenged an executive order until 1952, when Harry Truman tried to put the nation's steel mills under government control. That order was struck down by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it attempted to make a law, rather than clarify or further a law established by Congress or the Constitution. The only other executive order that has been overturned by the courts was in 1996 when Bill Clinton tried to prevent the US government from contracting with organizations that had strike-breakers on the payroll.
Here's the deal:
The president does not have, and Congress cannot grant the president, the power to create laws. However, given the above, shit happens. The courts will treat an executive order as having the "force and effect" of law, even though it isn't actually a law. If Congress does not reject an order, through the methods listed above, the courts still have the ability to decide on the constitutionality of the law. This too, however, can be problematic if the matter goes to the Supreme Court and that court is leaning to the same side of the political spectrum as the President and Congress.
Executive orders have been put into place that allow the president to declare martial law, suspend the constitution, and disallow the ability of Congress to review such actions for a period of six months. The reasons for declaring martial law no longer need to be defined. Orders have been put into place that not only severely limit our privacy, but remove other controls designed to protect us from abuse by our own government.
Wading through the mass of executive orders is a time consuming task. Executive orders are amended, revoked, or changed over time, sometimes altering the very nature of the original intent. I've waded through a vast number of web sites, many of which point to orders that are no longer in effect or have been changed. The only way to obtain valid information is to pour through the National Archives.
If you are up to the task, you can go to the Federal Register in the National Archives at
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html
I have not mentioned specific orders here as I do not want to make an incorrect statement when citing a specific order. Orders must be investigated from their original declaration through any changes that may have happened later. There are executive orders such as #11049 that combine and augment 21 different orders put in place over a 15 year period.
Through executive orders, the president now has the power to transfer whole populations to any part of the country, the power to suspend the press and to force a national registration of all persons. The President, in essence, has dictatorial powers never provided to him under the Constitution. These executive orders have been put into place by the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush (Sr and Jr) administrations. Several of these are revised documents from the Kennedy years when they were drafted over concern for nuclear attack. These include orders for centralized executive control of all modes of transportation, including roads, bridges and ports of entry, as well as communications, the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institutions. The Constitution provided for a balanced separation of powers. If these orders are acted upon, that is no longer applicable. The courts, perhaps, could act against the order. But here is what the Yale Law Journal has to say:
Judicial vagueness with respect to how executive orders interact with statutory law - and the courts' parallel tolerance for presidential vagueness regarding executive orders - makes it all the more difficult for Congress to participate in the separation of powers dance.
Congress may have a hard time even identifying whether it should be dancing the salsa or the tango.
Doctrine has also insulated executive orders from the commitment devices typically associated with statutory law.
While courts will entertain challenges to the legitimacy of executive orders, they will no longer hold the President to promises made in orders that partially or wholly (the line between the two is often left unclear) draw on the President's Article II authority.
Courts will, however, hold third parties to the requirements of these orders; this is, after all, what courts mean when they write that executive orders have the "force and effect of law."
Thus, insofar as the studied cases share a commonality, it is that they generally allow the President to broaden the scope of his own powers and to bind those governed by executive orders while simultaneously insulating himself from reciprocal demands of adherence to the same orders.
So, generally, lines are vague enough between the courts and the executive branches that overturning an executive order could be a long hard fight. However, a conservative court foolish enough to not object to authoritarian power could let such an order stand, especially if, in the courts' opinion, the threat seemed strong enough to impose the order.
There are Emergency Preparedness executive orders on the books that could easily be abused by an administration bent on totalitarian control. The events of 9/11 have been a great catapult toward passing legislation such as The Patriot and Real ID Acts, which create a situation that is severely threatening to our personal freedom.
This act, immorally attached to "must pass" legislation, allows the government to create a national database on all of its citizens, and will severely limit their activities if they are lacking the proper "papers", in the form of an electronically readable identification card. Real ID, according to security experts, will do nothing to prevent terrorists from entering the country, but will do a lot to control the activities of law-abiding citizens.
This act allows the government to effect
The Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has cited several breaches of department regulations, as well as violations of the law by the FBI in conducting sections of the Patriot Act. There were two instances where the FBI, on its own initiative, issued National Security Letters (NSL's) to get sensitive information after the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court had already rejected its requests.
An NSL is a demand letter issued to a business or organization requiring them to turn over an individual's personal data. NSL's require no probable cause or judicial oversight. There is also a non-disclosure provision - the business or organization is breaking the law if they inform you that your personal data is or was being investigated.
Use of NSL's is not limited to the FBI, although, prior to 2001, it was. Originally limited to foreign powers or those suspected of being agents of foreign powers, with the advent of the Patriot Act, use of NSL's was handed to Homeland Security, the CIA, the Pentagon and other federal agencies, and was expanded to include US citizens who are not suspects in any criminal investigation. So, this means that any one of several federal agencies can investigate you and go through your personal records, just because they want to, and anyone aware of the occurrence of such invasion is not allowed to tell you about it under threat of arrest.
These type of actions are unprecedented in American society, even though we have been under much more serious threat of attack than exists today. Throughout modern history, these type of acts usually precede the establishment of dictatorial governments.
I'll leave you with a quote:
"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful!
This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence.
It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil.
The one thing every man fears is the unknown.
When presented with this scenario, individual rights will willingly be relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by their world government."
-- Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberg group meeting at Evian, France, on May 21, 1991, as transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates.