You might need to go back up in the thread to get a better sense of the context.
Basically it legalizes a coup and declaration of martial law in advance of a threat, a threat determined by a militarized Homeland Security, which need NOT be invited by any State official to take over power. IOW no representative needs to make a decision to hand over power to a militarized portion of the goverment and no visible, easily documented by an independent press, disaster need be present.
After reading through this - I don’t really follow your actual concern very well in this.
I mean…It doesn’t take the effort to place a check and balance against potential abuses; that’s about the only real folly here that I see.
I don’t really understand the idea that this usurps FEMA for homland security when FEMA is the child agency of the U.S. Homeland Security, and in Executive representation falls under the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, who is on the the Defense Production Act Committee established in this Executive Order for discussions on Executive decisions regarding emergency relief and national security preparation and response.
This committee is also comprised of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Energy, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Administrator of General Services.
That’s, more or less, all arms of the Executive branch; including FEMA, via Homeland Security.
I don’t read this as bypassing FEMA, however, but instead dealing with all agencies that should be supporting situations of national security, defense and emergency relief; including FEMA.
Now, allot of what this deals with is a response to issues of ineptitude or neglect that have occurred in instances in the past; such as the National Guard having continued issues assisting in national emergency relief due to a lack of appropriate provisions and available staff - since most everything and everyone has been deployed overseas so heavily for quite some time.
This reads to me to be an attempt to rectify some of those holes, such as augmenting by tapping into the national reserve for staffing power instead of relying on the National Guard alone, and it commands agencies to assess what they would need in the advent of disasters, and to assess what else is found to be needed - including training for the preparation of such instances; something the National Guard does often enough, but other supporting agencies regularly neglect practicing.
In fact, there’s one part in this EO that kind of shows that it wasn’t intending to deliver all power to the President in some form of usurpation.
This actually is the President letting go of control and handing it over to individual agencies to make the decisions rather than relying on everything going through the President; which was the methodology established in the Patriot Act.
This part here more or less bypasses that Act of congress which funneled all power into the President for emergency and security threat response, and instead tells agencies to govern themselves (as they did before the Patriot Act).
Which is amusing to me, honestly, because the Act of congress - in this case - was the one in technical violation as an Act of Congress isn’t supposed to attempt to overstep the President’s managerial capacity over Federal agencies, but since this was an Act done between Congress in company with the President at that time, it wasn’t viewed as overstepping.
Now, to reverse it, since there’s no way of getting Congress to reverse this function - or rather, because politics have gotten wildly out of control and petty in Congress - this is the President essentially saying, “Fuck it, I actually have the authority to negate that bullshit. Everyone go back to the rational method of everyone making their own determinations of operation rather than submitting every request and decision to me.”
For a Federally United States of America, this EO actually make solid sense to me.
This is what should have actually been done instead of the Patriot Act, in all honesty.
The Patriot Act was overkill.
What should have been an executive process only was converted into a full Act of congress and involved bypassing the process of law for United States citizens as a result (which was the only action [related to homeland security] in the Patriot Act not possible in just an EO).
Perhaps I’m missing something here that you see in this EO?
Could you point to something in the EO that worries you specifically?
Meaning, can you point me to a section that alarms you?
I am not concerned with FEMA being dropped out of the loop, I am pointing out the changes now that Homeland, which did not exist before, is in Charge. FEMA could only respond to an invitation, by an elected official, to help in an ongoing, visible to everyone, disaster or crisis. Homeland does not need an invitation and the crisis need not be visible. It can be preventative.
Your defense of this is to point out that the executive branch has oversight of Homeland security. This means that people appointed by the president have this power. Which means that the power has centralized under the president. Though in practice, we can’t be sure how much free range homeland will have. And certainly if we think of, say Cheney and Rumsfeld being in charge, I am not calmed down. I am sure people with a more right leaning will be afraid of other powerful figures on the left.
Executive orders have been increasing the power of the Executive and that is the problem. That the advice would be coming from the militarized HOmeland is no consolation to me. Again, FEMA required and invitiation, HOmeland does not. FEMA would be called in in response to ongoing rioting, hurricanes, etc. Stuff very easy for the press to verify. Homeland can come in on perceived future threats.
I doubt this part was a change from the previous EO this one was superceding. The goals of the agencies are still being set by the Homeland Executive branch combination. All this means is that they will not micromanage the agencies way of very specifically achieving those goals.
He still has the power. I don’t think this EO has changed anything over the previous EO on this issue. In fact the changes were just a few, but they had huge implications.
It changes nothing in relation to the Patriot act. And really, it cannot do this.
I’ve said it. And very specifically in the other thread. Liz and I were arguing and she pointed out that there were only a couple of changes over the previous relevent EO. Homeland was in Charge in stead of Fema. I pointed out that there were in fact a couple of changes, that being one, the other being that Homeland could enact martial law - and the details and depth of this martial law, while the same as in the previous EO, bears looking at - in reaction to perceived threats, not ongoing crises.
So we have a shift, as stated now a few times, from FEMA needing to wait to be invited by an elected official into a state/states in response to an ongoing crisis, to Homeland security, a militarized organization being able to determine itself that it is needed and the threat need not be a present one, and certainly need not be one that a free press can verify.
I really don’t know what that doesn’t set off alarm bells for you.
Does this prove this is all being done with bad intent or part of a scheduled agenda. No. Does it make it vastly easier to set up a track to fascism? Absolutely.
What happened in Iraq, where BS led to a war, can now happen much easier domestically. The precise pattern, though now on home turf.
This would have been illegal before. Now it is legal.
Would that lack of legality prevented fascism? not necessarily. But there were many more checks in the process to deter a swing in that direction.
I also posted in that thread the number of bullets homeland ordered. An absolutely unbelievable number and it was a single order.
OK…I’m still not grasping what part of the EO specifically you are having issues with.
Homeland Security already had the provision you are speaking of following the Patriot Act.
They had more freedom under that, in fact.
Sigh. No, the Patriot Act is not reduced by this EO. The previous EO was in force until this EO and had precisely the same section you are quoting that you think reduces the power of the Patriot act. You do not respond to the specific points I make and interpret an internal management provision as if it limits the Executive Branch. It doesn’t. The Executive branch/HOmeland can tell the specific agencies to do anything listed under the powers given homeland, down to controlling every facet of any individuals property and self, but allows the agency to carry out the specifics of this by choosing its own people for example. All in force under the previous EO anyway. The differences, well, I have mentioned the differences. I keep pointing out how martial law and an executive/homeland takeover is much easier, and gave reasons for this. A couple of times now. You chose, twice, not to directly respond to the ACTUAL CHANGES the EO brings in and the potential danger there, but want to focus on something that was all ready in force in the previous EO that was there before. There were very few changes made by the new EO and the one you are focusing on is not one of them. The actual changes, which I have pointed out very carefully in the other thread and mentioned as part of arguments here, you do not respond to in your posts.
That’s irritating. And disrespectful, and I find again I do not want to communicate with you.
All I’m asking for is a citation of section that alarms you specifically as I’m not seeing one that bothers me.
What I was referring to regarding the Patriot Act wasn’t in regards to this lessening or increasing, but that the Patriot Act already had given everything over to Homeland Security.
This EO doesn’t give Homeland Security anything more than the Patriot Act already hadn’t given, and the Patriot Act went further than this EO (by a long shot) in permissions to Homeland Security.
I wasn’t saying this curled the Patriot Act back; I was saying this has far less grant in it than the Patriot Act (keeping in mind that many grants in the Patriot Act were then retracted by Congress in the following years).