Coronavirus: What Newsweek Failed to Mention About "Continuity of
Government"
Though often discussed in relation to nuclear war or a similarly chaotic
scenario, "continuity of government" plans can be triggered even by popular,
nonviolent opposition to an unpopular war abroad. It exists solely to keep
the current system in place, regardless of the cost.
by Whitney Webb
March 23rd, 2020
By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb
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WASHINGTON DC (The Last American Vagabond) - Last week, Newsweek published a
report entitled "Inside The Military's Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus
Cripples the Government," which offers vague descriptions of different
military plans that could be put into effect if the civilian government were
to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the potential of the current
novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to result in such a scenario.
The article's author, William Arkin, largely frames these plans as new,
though - buried deep within the article - he eventually mentions that such
contingency plans can be traced back to the Eisenhower administration
(though they were in place before) and have since been developed and updated
by most subsequent administrations, largely through the issuance of
executive orders. Arkin also points out that some of these "Continuity of
Government", or COG, plans include the "devolution" of leadership and
Constitutional authority, which he notes "could circumvent the normal
Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders
could be placed in control around America."
Yet, there are key aspects of COG and its development that Arkin leaves out.
For instance, in his timeline on how such plans have developed in the
post-World War II era, he conveniently fails to mention any of the Reagan
administration's major changes to COG, including the Reagan-era Executive
Order on which all current COG programs are based. Indeed, many of the
"extra-Constitutional" aspects of COG that Arkin mentions began during the
Reagan administration, when these plans were redrafted to largely exclude
members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House, from succession
plans and even moved to essentially eliminate Congress in the event of COG
being implemented, with near total power instead being given to the
executive branch and the military. It was also during this time that the
"devolution" aspect of COG was hammered out, as it created three
president-cabinet "teams" to be stationed in different parts of the country
outside of the nation's capital. Arkin's decision to not mention how COG was
a major focus of the Reagan administration is striking given that that
administration poured hundreds of millions of dollars annually into COG
planning and development and also conducted COG drills on a regular basis.
Furthermore, the Miami Herald revealed in 1987, that the COG programs of
that era were deeply connected to what the Herald termed "a virtual parallel
government outside the traditional cabinet departments and agencies" that
began operating "almost from the day Reagan took office" and included
military and intelligence operatives as well as many of Reagan's closest
advisers, including then-CIA Director William Casey. The Herald further
claimed that this "parallel government" had been responsible for the
Iran-Contra scandal (i.e. "involved in arming the Nicaraguan rebels") as
well as "the drafting of martial law plans for national emergencies," i.e.
COG, as well as "the monitoring of U.S. citizens considered potential
security risks." This "parallel government" planned to use COG to install
itself as the ruling power of the country and to detain potential opponents
of a U.S. war with Nicaragua in the event that the Reagan administration
moved to invade the country.
Other key players in those Reagan-era COG developments, such as former Vice
President Dick Cheney, former CIA Director James Woosley and former
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, are also left unmentioned in Arkin's
article. Not mentioning Cheney and Rumsfeld are particularly glaring
omissions given that they were involved in the implementation of aspects of
those COG plans that went live in the wake of the September 11 attacks, when
both men were serving in key posts in the George W. Bush administration.
While Arkin's omission of the role of the Reagan administration and leading
neoconservatives in the development and use of COG is significant, arguably
more significant is his failure to mention one of COG's major components,
one that has gone essentially unmentioned by well-known media outlets for
well over a decade - Main Core.
The government's database of "potential troublemakers"
When Reagan issued Executive Order 12656, he created COG plans that could be
implemented during "any national security emergency," which the E.O. loosely
defines as "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack,
technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or
seriously threatens the national security of the United States." E.O. 12656
also put the National Security Council (NSC) in charge of developing and
administering COG policies. The NSC official placed in charge of this
"secret" COG program was Oliver North, whose name would later become
infamous for the key role he played in the Iran-Contra Scandal. During the
Iran-Contra hearings in the late 1980s, then-Representative Jack Brooks
(D-TX) attempted to ask the following question to North: "Colonel North, in
your work at the NSC, were you not assigned at one time to work on plans for
the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?" Brooks,
however was immediately cut off by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who stated
" I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified
area, so may I request that you not touch upon that, sir." Brooks protested,
but North was ultimately not required to give an answer.
As the de facto leader of COG development and planning during the Reagan
administration, North oversaw the creation of a controversial database that
later became known simply as "Main Core." The Main Core database, first
built using the stolen PROMIS software (more information on PROMIS here and
here), was essentially a list of American dissidents and "potential
troublemakers." A senior government official with a high-ranking security
clearance and service in five presidential administrations described the
database to journalist Chris Ketcham in 2008 as follows:
A database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial
reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic might be
incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the
state' almost instantaneously."
In 1993, Wired magazine stated that:
Using PROMIS, sources point out, North could have drawn up lists of anyone
ever arrested for a political protest, for example, or anyone who had ever
refused to pay their taxes. Compared to PROMIS, Richard Nixon's enemies list
or Sen. Joe McCarthy's blacklist look downright crude."
Main Core is the aspect of COG that is most often ignored in reporting on
these types of plans, with Arkin's article being just a more recent example.
While most of the rare mentions of COG in the mainstream touch on how those
plans would result in the implementation of martial law and the suspension
of the Constitution, they even more rarely - if ever - mention Main Core.
Indeed, the last "mainstream" reports on Main Core were written over a
decade ago - all in 2008 - by Chris Ketcham in Radar, by Scott Horton in
Harper's and by Tim Shorrock in Salon.
Given that COG is now creeping back into mainstream reporting, revisiting
Main Core is essential as the database still exists and has grown
considerably since Oliver North first oversaw its creation in the early
1980s. In Ketcham's 2008 article on the subject, he quotes then-senior
government officials who said that, at the time, the number of "unfriendly"
Americans on that database was approximately 8 million. Ketcham further
notes that, in the event COG is implemented, these individuals could be
subject to anything ranging from "heightened surveillance and tracking to
direct questioning and possibly even detention."
Tim Shorrock, in his coverage of Main Core, noted that the database was seen
in use at the White House following the September 11 attacks and there is
strong evidence pointing to it having been used by the George W. Bush
administration to guide its domestic surveillance activities in the
post-9/11 era. A government official who had told a reporter about having
seen the database operational at the White House following September 11th
"turned white as a sheet" when the reporter mentioned the name "Main Core"
specifically. Shorrock's reporting also details how Main Core includes vast
amounts of information on those "unfriendly" Americans, including the fruits
of the vast domestic surveillance programs of the NSA and other U.S. federal
agencies that continue today and are now set to be expanded due to the
current coronavirus crisis.
In a report written last year on the involvement of U.S. and Israeli
intelligence and their private sector allies in pushing for new, troubling
pre-crime programs, I noted that Main Core is not only available to U.S.
intelligence but also Israel's intelligence apparatus and that Israeli
intelligence was involved in the creation and expansion of Main Core. That
report also detailed how Main Core was used by members of Reagan's NSC to
blackmail members of Congress, a practice that is likely to have continued
under subsequent administrations. It also noted how Main Core today likely
involves the same software now used by every U.S. intelligence agency and
numerous other federal agencies that is marketed by Palantir, a company
created and owned by Trump ally Peter Thiel. Palantir's software boasts
"predictive policing" capabilities and tracks a category of person using the
label "subversive," very much in keeping with the spirit of Main Core.
Main Core and Bill Barr's Power Grab
Though Main Core was reportedly in use after September 11 to target
"unfriendly" individuals for increased domestic surveillance, concern that
COG plans in the age of coronavirus could take a more drastic turn and
involve the detention of Americans included in that database now seems more
plausible than ever. On Saturday, Politico reported that the Department of
Justice has demanded new "emergency powers" during the current pandemic and
these powers include being able to indefinitely detain Americans without
trial. Politico also noted that the DOJ's controversial new requests "span
several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are
processed and investigated." Per the DOJ's requests, indefinite detention
would emerge through a new ability whereby the Attorney General or a judge
could pause court proceedings whenever courts are "fully or partially closed
by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency
situation."
What Politico did not include in its report is that current Attorney General
William Barr has spent the past several months fine-tuning and implementing
a "pre-crime" program. Officially known as the "National Disruption and
Early Engagement Program" (DEEP), it aims to "identify, assess and engage"
potentially violent individuals "before they strike." Barr first announced
this program last October in an official memorandum and therein stated that
the program was to be implemented sometime over the course of 2020 and would
involve "an efficient, effective and programmatic strategy to disrupt
individuals who are mobilizing towards violence, by all lawful means."
A training conference for that program took place this past December and
involved members of the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of
Investigation and "private sector partners." One recent DOJ statement
regarding an arrest made last year in Nevada, claimed that that specific
case was part of the DOJ's "National Disruption and Early Engagement
Program," suggesting that this program is already in use - at least in some
parts of the country.
In his memorandum, Barr further notes that the program's "early engagement
tactics" were "born of the posture we adopted with respect to terrorist
threats" following the September 11 attacks, essentially stating that this
pre-crime program will utilize methods from the "War on Terror" domestically
and on a massive scale.
Given the context of the current coronavirus crisis, the DOJ's recent
request for sweeping new powers and the role of Main Core in COG plans, one
part of Barr's pre-crime memorandum stands out. In the part of the document
where Barr outlines what actions will be taken once an individual is deemed
potentially violent or threatening, he writes that those individuals will be
subject to detention, court-ordered mental health treatment and electronic
monitoring, among other measures.
The possibility of pre-crime detention was also present in the DOJ's recent
request for new "emergency powers" in light of the coronavirus crisis, as it
specifically asks that those new powers apply to "any statutes or rules of
procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and
post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil
process and proceedings." Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told Politico that the
inclusion of the term "pre-arrest" likely means that "you could be arrested
and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the
civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying."
Thus, if DOJ is granted these new powers it has requested, the William
Barr-led Department of Justice will not only be authorized to indefinitely
detain Americans without trial, it will be able to detain them without any
proof of those detainees having committed a crime or even having plans or
the intent to commit a crime. Instead, the DOJ only needs to argue that the
individual was "mobilizing towards violence," an extremely vague phrase that
could potentially be used against anyone who expresses discontent with the
government or government policy.
Furthermore, with the FBI having recently flagged "conspiracy theorists"
(and by extension those who distrust or question government narratives of
both past and present) as a "domestic terror threat," the DOJ could even
make the case that failure to blindly trust government narratives presents a
threat to the public order. Given that the Main Core database in its current
form contains bulk surveillance gathered from social media, phone
conversations/messaging apps and even financial information (i.e. purchasing
history, etc.) on Americans deemed unfriendly "often for the slightest and
most trivial reason," this unprecedented power grab by the DOJ has an
authoritarian and Orwellian potential to target legitimate dissent like
never before.
With the specter of COG now snaking its way into mainstream discourse during
the coronavirus crisis, it is essential that Americans stay vigilant, as
these Orwellian and dystopian "solutions" to allegedly protect us from the
current pandemic have been in place long before COVID-19 made its appearance
on the world stage or landed on U.S. shores.
It is also essential to remember that COG, Main Core and the DOJ's pre-crime
program were all created and are currently controlled by extremely corrupt
and fundamentally untrustworthy individuals who have not only been involved
in innumerable scandals over the years, but have also installed and
supported some of the most authoritarian, savage and horrific dictators the
world has ever seen. To trust them with such unprecedented and dangerous
powers in a period of national confusion and panic is tantamount to
beckoning the horrors of those dictatorships - past and present - to come
home to roost.
