Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997
Sender: Francisco Lopez <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Executive Orders (Potential for the erosion of the rights of the
individuals)
From: SKYWATCH Post Only <•••@••.•••>
From: •••@••.•••
In reviewing a couple of the latest posts from skywatch, it occurs to me
that a lot of people are concerned about the NWO and what may happen in
the near future. Executive orders have already gone through congress
making it very easy for these things to happen, and if you look at some of
these orders, you realize that the average citizen is pretty powerless to
stop it, or so it seems.
Here is something I found in my archives that may clear some of this up
and show how much "total Power" the President already has:
THE EXECUTIVE ORDER:
a Presidential Power not designated by the Constitution
By Harry V. Martin with research assistance from David Caul
Copyright FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995
Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution is concise in its
language, "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House
of Representatives." When the Constitution was proposed, those opposed to
a strong central government, the anti-Federalists, argued that there was
no Bill of Rights to protect the people and that a centralized government
would become too powerful, usurping the rights of the individual States.
At the time of its formation, the Constitution was created in secrecy and
in direct contradiction to the mandate of the Congress, which was to amend
the Articles of Confederation that were governing the infant nation since
the end of the American revolution. Under the Articles of Confederation,
the President of the United States was known as the President of the
United States in Congress Assembled. The one-year Presidency was very
limited in its scope, responsibility and authority. The Constitution, in
contrast to the Articles of Confederation, established a strong four-year
Presidency, but still only providing extremely limited powers to the
office. The greatest fear the founders of this nation had was the
establishment of a strong central government and a strong political leader
at the center of that government. They no longer wanted kings, potentates
or czars, they wanted a loose association of States in which the power
emanated from the States and not from the central government. John Adams
advocated that a good government consists of three balancing powers, the
legislative, executive and the judicial, that would produce an equilibrium
of interests and thereby promote the happiness of the whole community. It
was Adams' theory that the only effectual method to secure the rights of
the people and promote their welfare was to create an opposition of
interests between the members of two distinct bodies (legislative and
executive) in the exercise of the powers of government, and balanced by
those of a third (judicial).
THE BILL OF RIGHTS
On June 8, 1789, James Madison proposed the Bills of Rights to the new
Congress. Its eventual creation was the outcropping of arguments made
in the respective State legislatures debating ratification of the new
Constitution. Madison had previously been opposed to the establishment
of the Bill of Rights, but the treatises of Thomas Jefferson convinced
him of the necessity of such Constitutional amendments. The concept was
simple, according to Madison, "That all power is originally vested in,
and consequently derived from the people. That government is instituted
and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists
in the enjoyment of life and liberty and the right of acquiring
property, and generally of pursing and obtaining happiness and safety.
That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible
right to reform or change their government whenever it be found adverse
or inadequate to the purpose of its institution." He further
advocated, "The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of
religious belief or worship...The people shall not be deprived or
abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their
sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks
of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained
from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor for
applying to the legislature by petitions or remonstrances for redress
of their grievances...The right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed." The framework of this nation is embodied in
the Bill of Rights, unequaled in its time, and surpassed by none to
date. Madison also stated, "The rights of the people to be secured in
their persons, their houses, their papers, and their other property
from all unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated by
warrants issued without probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, or not particularly describing the places to be searched,
or the persons or things to be seized." He added, "In all criminal
prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public
trial to be informed of the cause and nature of the accusation, to be
confronted with his accusers and the witnesses against him; to have a
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have
the assistance of counsel for his defense."
THE EXECUTIVE ORDER IN TIME OF WAR
Many of the fears of the founding fathers may now be coming to
fruition. Today, the executive branch of the government is immensely
powerful, much more powerful than the founding fathers had envisioned
or wanted. Congressional legislative powers have been usurped. There is
no greater example of that usurpation than in the form of the
Presidential Executive Order. The process totally by-passes
Congressional legislative authority and places in the hands of the
President almost unilateral power. The Executive Order governs
everything from the Flag Code of the United States to the ability to
single-handedly declare Martial Law. Presidents have used the Executive
Order in times of emergencies to override the Constitution of the
United States and the Congress. President Andrew Jackson used
executive powers to force the law-abiding Cherokee Nation off their
ancestral lands. The Cherokee fought the illegal action in the U.S.
Supreme Court and won. But Jackson, using the power of the Presidency,
continued to order the removal of the Cherokee Nation and defied the
Court's ruling. He stated, "Let the Court try to enforce their ruling."
The Cherokee lost their land and commenced a series of journeys that
would be called The Trail of Tears. President Abraham Lincoln
suspended many fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights. He closed down newspapers opposed to his war-time
policies and imprisoned what many historians now call political
prisoners. He suspended the right of trial and the right to be
confronted by accusers. Lincoln's justification for such drastic
actions was the preservation of the Union above all things. After the
war and Lincoln's death, Constitutional law was restored. In 1917,
President Woodrow Wilson could not persuade Congress to arm United
States vessels plying hostile German waters before the United States
entered World War One. When Congress balked, Wilson invoked the policy
through a Presidential Executive Order. President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066 in December 1941. His
order forced 100,000 Japanese residents in the United States to be
rounded up and placed in concentration camps. The property of the
Japanese was confiscated. Both Lincoln's and Roosevelt's actions were
taken during wartime, when the very life of the United States was
threatened. Wilson's action was taken on the eve of the United States
entering World War One. Whether history judges these actions as just,
proper or legal, the decision must be left to time. The dire life
struggle associated with these actions provided plausible argumentation
favoring their implementation during a time when hysteria ruled an age.
THE NEW DANGERS
A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not,
becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress
is by-passed. Here are just a few Executive Orders that would suspend
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have
been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke
of a Presidential pen:
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of
transportation and control of highways and seaports. EXECUTIVE ORDER
10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication
media. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all
electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. EXECUTIVE ORDER
10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into
work brigades under government supervision. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001
allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare
functions. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to
operate a national registration of all persons. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003
allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including
commercial aircraft. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and
Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with
public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new
locations for populations. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government
to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of
Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders
into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic
or financial crisis. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the
Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders,
to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative
liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional
institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
Without Congressional approval, 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. The President has the power to suspend the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights in a real or perceived emergency.
Unlike Lincoln and Roosevelt, these powers are not derived from a
wartime need, but from any crisis, domestic or foreign, hostile or
economic. Roosevelt created extraordinary measures during the Great
Depression, but any President faced with a similar, or lesser,
economic crisis now has extraordinary powers to assume dictatorial
status. Many of the Executive Orders cited here have been on the
books for over a quarter of a century and have not been applied.
Therefore, what makes them more dangerous today than yesteryear? There
has been a steady, consistent series of new Executive Orders,
originating from President Richard Nixon and added to by Presidents
Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and George Bush that provide an ominous
Orwellian portrait, the portrait of George Orwell's 1984.
THE EROSION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
A series of Executive Orders, internal governmental departmental laws,
unpassed by Congress, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and the Violent
Crime Control Act of 1991, has whittled down Constitutional law
substantially. These new Executive Orders and Congressional Acts allow
for the construction of concentration camps, suspension of rights and
the ability of the President to declare Martial Law in the event of a
drug crisis. Congress will have no power to prevent the Martial Law
declaration and can only review the process six months after Martial
Law has been declared. The most critical Executive Order was issued on
August 1, 1971. Nixon signed both a proclamation and Executive Order
11615. Proclamation No. 4074 states, "I hereby declare a national
emergency", thus establishing an economic crisis. That national
emergency order has not been rescinded. The crisis that changed the
direction of governmental thinking was the anti-Vietnam protests. Fear
that such demonstrations might explode into civil unrest, Executive
Orders began to be created to allow extreme measures to be implemented
to curtail the demonstrations. The recent Los Angeles riots after the
Rodney King jury verdict only reinforced the government's concern about
potential civil unrest and the need to have an effective mechanism to
curtail such demonstrations. Here are the later Executive Orders:
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to
federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive
Orders issued over a fifteen year period. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows
the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish
control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy
sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S.
financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also
provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President,
Congress cannot review the action for six months. EXECUTIVE ORDER
12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that is to
interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and
funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6
percent of its budget on national emergencies, the bulk of their
funding has been used for the construction of secret underground
facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major
emergency, foreign or domestic. EXECUTIVE ORDER 12656 appointed the
National Security Council as the principal body that should consider
emergency powers. This allows the governme
[submitted posting ends here]
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Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland
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