Is the government compiling a secret list of citizens to detain under martial law?In the spring of 2007, a retired senior official in the U.S. Justice Department sat before Congress and told a story so odd and ominous, it could have sprung from the pages of a pulp political thriller. It was about a principled bureaucrat struggling to protect his country from a highly classified program with sinister implications. Rife with high drama, it included a car chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., and a tense meeting at the White House, where the president s henchmen made the bureaucrat so nervous that he demanded a neutral witness be present. The bureaucrat was James Comey, John Ashcroft s second-in-command at the Department of Justice during Bush s first term. Comey had been a loyal political foot soldier of the Republican Party for many years. Yet in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he described how he had grown increasingly uneasy reviewing the Bush administration s various domestic surveillance and spying programs. Much of his testimony centered on an operation so clandestine he wasn t allowed to name it or even describe what it did. He did say, however, that he and Ashcroft had discussed the program in March 2004, trying to decide whether it was legal under federal statutes. Shortly before the certification deadline, Ashcroft fell ill with pancreatitis, making Comey acting attorney general, and Comey opted not to certify the program. When he communicated his decision to the White House, Bush s men told him, in so many words, to take his concerns and stuff them in an undisclosed location. The Continuity of Governance program encompasses national emergency plans that would trigger the takeover of the country by extra-constitutional forces. In short, it s a road map for martial law.READ MORE Share This
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