Doom Is A Government Department

You Have Been Inducted

What if you were told that the president was planning to sign an Executive Order ("EO")?

That the said EO gave him and his cabinet members the authority to take your money, your home, your children, your guns, your labor, and your services?

And that whatever was taken was to be used by the government as needed, because "national security" interests required it?

"That will never happen in our future", you might say, and you would be right.

Why?

Because, according to some observers, it happened last Friday, and is now in our history, which means it can't happen in our future now:

Section 101. Purpose. This order delegates authorities and addresses national defense resource policies and programs under the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (the "Act").

Sec. 102. Policy. The United States must have an industrial and technological base capable of meeting national defense requirements and capable of contributing to the technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime and in times of national emergency. The domestic industrial and technological base is the foundation for national defense preparedness. The authorities provided in the Act shall be used to strengthen this base and to ensure it is capable of responding to the national defense needs of the United States.

Sec. 103. General Functions. Executive departments and agencies (agencies) responsible for plans and programs relating to national defense (as defined in section 801(j) of this order), or for resources and services needed to support such plans and programs, shall:

(a) identify requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand;

(b) assess on an ongoing basis the capability of the domestic industrial and technological base to satisfy requirements in peacetime and times of national emergency, specifically evaluating the availability of the most critical resource and production sources, including subcontractors and suppliers, materials, skilled labor, and professional and technical personnel;

(c) be prepared, in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements;

(d) improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the domestic industrial base to support national defense requirements; and

(e) foster cooperation between the defense and commercial sectors for research and development and for acquisition of materials, services, components, and equipment to enhance industrial base efficiency and responsiveness.

'''

Sec. 201.  Priorities and Allocations Authorities.  (a)  The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads:

(1)  the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer;

(2)  the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy;

(3)  the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources;

(4)  the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation;

(5)  the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and

(6)  the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.

(b)  The Secretary of each agency delegated authority under subsection (a) of this section (resource departments) shall plan for and issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources and establish standards and procedures by which the authority shall be used to promote the national defense, under both emergency and non-emergency conditions.

...

Sec. 502. Consultants. The head of each agency otherwise delegated functions under this order is delegated the authority of the President under sections 710(b) and (c) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2160(b), (c), to employ persons of outstanding experience and ability without compensation and to employ experts, consultants, or organizations. The authority delegated by this section may not be redelegated.
...

(Executive Order, 3/16/12, emphasis added). This is an EO inducting every person into the service of the government "without compensation", if deemed necessary?

Here are two interpretations of that EO:

"In a stunning move, on March 16, 2012, Barack Obama signed an Executive Order stating that the President and his specifically designated Secretaries now have the authority to commandeer all domestic U.S. resources including food and water. The EO also states that the President and his Secretaries have the authority to seize all transportation, energy, and infrastructure inside the United States as well as forcibly induct/draft American citizens into the military. The EO also contains a vague reference in regards to harnessing American citizens to fulfill “labor requirements” for the purposes of national defense.

Not only that, but the authority claimed inside the EO does not only apply to National Emergencies and times of war. It also applies in peacetime" (Activist Post).

....

"On Friday, March 16, Barack Obama signed the “National Defense Resources Preparedness” Executive Order, authorizing his administration to begin "under both emergency and non-emergency conditions," ... " to employ persons of outstanding experience and ability without compensation," and to retain other individuals and organizations with specialized knowledge or abilities, or otherwise important to the adminstration.

Even more worrisome, Sec. 308 of the E.O. authorizes administration officials to " procure and install ... equipment, facilities, processes, or improvements to plants, factories, and other industrial facilities ... owned by private persons" (Above Top Secret).

What is most important is the way that the government interprets this EO, because that interpretation may be classified:

The senators [Udall, Wyden], who also said that Americans would be “stunned” to know what the government thought the Patriot Act allowed it to do, made their remarks in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. after a Justice Department official last month told a judge that disclosing anything about the program “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.”

The Justice Department has argued that disclosing information about its interpretation of the Patriot Act could alert adversaries to how the government collects certain intelligence. It is seeking the dismissal of two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits — by The New York Times and by the American Civil Liberties Union — related to how the Patriot Act has been interpreted.

(FDL). Thus, all the blog talk that focuses on the text alone, like what was done with the Patriot Act, misses the key consideration that the government's own interpretation is the only way to know how they will implement the EO.

Nevertheless, be sure to make known your interpretation in the comment section please, so we can have something to compare to the government version of interpreting the EO, and the Patriot Act for that matter, should those interpretations ever be made known to the public.

The U.S. Supreme Court has visited upon these Presidential EO notions before, and one famous case that law students read in law school says:

The Executive Order was not authorized by the Constitution or laws of the United States, and it cannot stand.

(Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 585-589, 1952). That may be the reason the government does not want its interpretation known.

Friday's Obama EO does cite a statute, so the administration will be required to show in court where that statute or the Constitution allows what the administration says it is allowed to do.

Wasn't it just last Friday that AG Holder said the president can order the killing, at home or abroad, of any American he deems to be an enemy, without a grand jury, without defense counsel, without notice, and without a trial?

We were forewarned about this by this president and this president, so we have had centuries of warnings, including one from another president:

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny” – Thomas Jefferson

If our government thinks it solves problems by perverting freedom into tyranny, i.e. killing citizens without warning, or by taking all they have, then making slaves of them, how will mankind solve its much more difficult global problems (see World Solution Doesn't Exist)?

Long ago Dredd Blog indicated that the government solution to these problems would be Triage.

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