Has the Government Already Implemented Continuity of Government Plans?

As pure fiction, imagine that the U.S. government has already implemented its “continuity of government plans”. As you probably know, the continuity of government (“COG”) plans are contingency plans which create a new government in the case of an alleged threat to the ability of the American government to continue operations. America's COG plans were created to deal with nuclear war, but they have been discussed in many other contexts as well.

What would things look like if the COG plans were already being implemented?

• Top leaders of the “new government” called for in the COG would entirely or largely go into hiding, and would govern in hidden locations
  

• Those within the new government would know what was going on. But those in the “old government” – that is, the one created by the framers of the Constitution – would not necessarily know the details of what was happening

• Normal laws and legal processes might largely be suspended, or superseded by secretive judicial forums

• The media might be ordered by strict laws – punishable by treason – to only promote stories authorized by the new government

Is It Possible?

• As everyone jokes about, Dick Cheney has largely been hiding in “an undisclosed location” since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks

• Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the Homeland Security Committee (and so with proper security access), inquired about continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told Congress that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans (video; or here is the transcript). He concluded:

"Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”.

• Habeas corpus and other fundamental legal safeguards have been abandoned. More and more people who question the government are being labeled as “terrorists”, and people are increasingly falling into black holes and being subject to judicial decisions made by secret bodies no one has even heard of before. Increasingly, the executive branch is “above the law” (for example, the Attorney General has basically stated that he won’t enforce the law). John Conyers has acted like a schizophrenic off his meds by sitting on his hands on impeachment, even though he has said that Bush and Cheney must be impeached.

• The corporate media has censored -- or delayed by years -- stories of the government. While the mainstream American media has always been lousy, it has become exponentially worse since 9/11

No Way

You might ask what could have triggered the implementation of COG plans. Well, 9/11 and the anthrax attacks would almost certainly qualify as large enough events to trigger COG.

You might also argue that the above scenario is impossible because we would know if continuity of government plans had been implemented.

However, consider that the COG plans themselves may order the media, Congress and everyone else under penalty of treason not to discuss the plans. Why?

Because the government can prevent panic and keep control if people believe that the three branches of government are still functioning. It is standard operating procedure for governments to underplay the severity of crises, so as to prevent panic. And if people -- hypothetically – did want to institute martial law, they would be smart enough to institute a police state that looked very different from Nazi Germany. In this age of media manipulation, social psychology, marketing savvy, and psychological operations, planners of a police state in modern America would want to ensure that it looked like America-as-usual, so that people did not realize what was really happening.

Is that why the Homeland Security Committee was denied access to the COG plans? Because they included laws ordering people to keep the COG program secret, and to pretend that it was business-as-usual? Or because they have already been implemented?

Is that why the federal government is basically “deputizing” corporations to act as sheriffs in the event of martial law? And training pastors to preach obedience to martial law?

Remember also that provisions of the Homegrown Terrorism are already being implemented, even though the Senate has not yet approved that law (and see this). How could that happen if COG plans were not in effect?