Merely a COG in Main Core

By Michael Fraase

Thursday, 22 May 2008 08:53PM CST

Section: Law

Detention campWhen the New York Times first disclosed President Bush’s warrantless wiretap program, Bush addressed the nation, assuring the populace that the program was reviewed every 45 days as part of a threat assessment to government continuity.

That last bit—government continuity—flew beneath the radar for quite some time with good reason. The administration’s continuity of government (COG) programs were established under a presidential directive. Note that the text of the directive, PDD-NSC-67, has never been released; only a White House media release. Congress—and the public—never saw it; let alone voted on it. What’s more, the sections surrounding security, referred to as Annexes in the directive, are classified.

According to Christopher Ketcham, writing for Radar, continuity of government programs reside “in a nebulous legal realm, encompassing national emergency plans that would trigger the takeover of the country by extra-constitutional forces—and effectively suspend the republic. In short, it’s a road map for martial law.”

In March 2004 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and his top aide, James Comey, were trying to decide if an unspecified Bush domestic surveillance program was legal. A short time later Ashcroft was hospitalized and Comey decided not to certify the legality of the program. In response, Bush sent Chief of Staff Andrew Card and then-White House lawyer Alberto Gonzales to talk Ashcroft into certifying the program. Ashcroft refused, and the next day, “the classified domestic spying program that Comey found so disturbing went forward at the demand of the White House,” Ketcham writes. “Without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality,” Comey testified before the Senate judiciary committee.

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