President George W. Bush signed several standing orders following the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and D.C. that endowed the presidency with massive power in the event of a future national emergency. These orders created the Northern Command for National Defense, the military’s first-ever command explicitly directed at “threats” on American soil. In an actual emergency, Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency would largely become the functional executive branch of federal government, assuming direct responsibility for anything related to that now-familiar rubric, “national security.”
One of these orders also reportedly makes possible the seizure of “radio and television stations and networks.” If true, it is unprecedented, as well as somewhat redundant. Continue reading “Radio, TV Stations Could Be Seized in Emergency”
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