Dictator Much

So, I was reading a blog by Naomi Wolf (author of The Beauty Myth and The End of America) in which she was detailing in her decision to vote for Obama.

In that blog, which you can find here, she mentioned the "National Security Presidential Directive" (also know as Presidental Directive 51). It was signed by the President George W. Bush on May 4, 2007.

Essentially, this directive gives the president the ability to act as all three branches of government should a catastrophic emergency occur. However, the definition of such an emergency is quite broad, so who knows what really qualifies as a catastrophic emergency.

Even worse is that part of the directive is still classified, so the public can't know what all it entails. Even Peter DeFazio, member of the Homeland Security Committee in the House of Representatives, was denied access to the whole document.

There has been in a law in place in 1976 that essentially does the same thing as this directive, but that law allows for Congressional oversight. As far as my sources can tell, there is no such provision in the presidential directive. For fairness sake, it is important to note that past presidents have also signed similar orders in secret without providing any knowledge to the public.

In my mind, the fact that this order was made public is more alarming because it serves to remind the public to watch our collective ass because Daddy is gonna git you.

Hopefully, an order like this gives you some slight chills. At the same time though, I am not too surprised by Presidential Directive 51 because this is the same administration that fought to get an abomination like the Military Commissions Act passed. (For those not in the know, the MCA allows the government to declare anyone, citizen or not, an "enemy combatant" and hold you without trial or charges indefinitely.)

When a democracy (or republic or whatever you want to call it) has laws and a mentality like this, you can be sure that something is breaking within the system. Paranoia, fascism, empirial rule: these are some of the things that come to mind when I consider laws like those mentioned above. Hopefully, we can get someone into office who will not stand for such abuses of power and degradations of human (and Constitutional) rights. In the meantime, we should still be taking proactive measures like writing Congresspeople to let them know that we are in extreme opposition to measures like the MCA and Presidential Directive 51.

Information on:
Presidential Directive 51
Military Commissions Act

Contact your Senator or Representative:
The U.S. Senate (look at the top right to locate your senator)
The U.S. House of Representatives (look to the top left to find your representative)