Obama’s “Emergency” Control Over Private Telcommunications: The Terrorists Win
By Mary Theroux • Sunday July 15, 2012 12:44 PM PDT • 7 Comments
In the days following 9/11, we heard many poignant recordings of phone messages between victims caught up in the terrorist attacks and their families. Perhaps the most stirring was that from the mother of Mark Bingham, informing her son aboard United Flight 93 that planes were being used as weapons and urging him to do everything he could to “overpower these guys.” Armed with such information, rather than following Standard Operating Procedure of cooperating with the hijackers as did the other doomed flights that day, passengers aboard Flight 93 led a successful assault on the cockpit that resulted in the plane’s crashing in a field in Pennsylvania, rather than into its likely intended target, the White House or Capitol building.
Now, President Obama has signed an executive order providing the government control of all telecommunications, including private telephone, cellular, and wireless networks, in an “emergency.” Under the terms of this, Flight 93′s passengers would be unlikely to be privy to the knowledge that their hijacking was part of a coordinated attack on the U.S., and Flight 93 would today thus likely hit its intended target.
A year ago, the acting director of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system was able, under his own authority, to preemptively block all access to private cell phone communication by anyone in a public BART station because of the rumor of an intended protest, defending his actions as justified under a 1969 ruling under which “you can put public safety above free speech.” In a Freedom Watch segment in which I appeared, “BART Borrows from Mubarak,” Judge Andrew Napolitano expressed dismay that this could have occurred in a city “known for its open attitudes and for its political protests.” Having learned well from Robert Higgs’s Crisis and Leviathan, I rightly warned that as night follows day, this “extraordinary” precedent would be followed by additional, extended governmental exercise of “emergency” control of communications.
And so it has come.
This next nail in the coffin of our former liberties could only make sense to those who—believing, as George W. Bush, that “they hate us for our freedoms”—seek to secure safety at the expense of those freedoms. We instead now have neither liberty nor safety, and with the stroke of his pen in signing this executive order, President Obama has now improved the odds for the terrorists should they attack again.
As we saw during 9/11 and through the Arab Spring, in this Information Age communication is one of the most powerful weapons we possess. Now communications-disarmed, our citizenry is thus that much easier to conquer. The question is: Is our conqueror foreign, or domestic?
Tags: American History, California, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Defense, Liberty, Peace, Personal Liberty, Police, Presidential Power, Surveillance, Terrorism, The State, Transportation 
“Under the terms of this, Flight 93′s passengers would be unlikely to be privy to the knowledge that their hijacking was part of a coordinated attack on the U.S., and Flight 93 would today thus likely hit its intended target.”
This is frivolous conjecture, and makes a dangerous generalization. In order for this to happen the gov’t, with a concerted effort that spans multiple governmental agencies and Internet / Telecommunications providers, would have to shut down cellular and Internet data providers nationwide in order to restrict incoming and outgoing calls to a group of people using numerous devices from multiple providers.
The act allows for *prioritization* of government communications in case of an emergency, and does not stipulate a shutdown of services wholesale. This article, in my opinion, is BS start to finish and it is in very bad taste that you invoke the memory of what 9/11 passengers did in order to lambaste a political figure.
Tyler | Jul 15, 2012 | Reply
Retarded Americans will keep voting Dem and Rep.
Buttcheek | Jul 15, 2012 | Reply
I am not by nature a conspiracy theorist or “tinfoil hat wearer.” Throughout my entire life I have tried to use observation,logic and reason to come to conclusions about political happenings and the flow of history. However,you would have to be blind not to see the out and out tactics used by the Elitists to try and establish a “New World Order”and the creation of a centralized one world government to control the world. Most things just don’t “happen.” The many tactics,used by these same powerful men, include the creation of the EU and it’s attendant European Central Bank,along with the American Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. By having a monopoly on the creation of Fiat Currency out of thin air,the Elitists who control most of the Central Banks of the world can create the economic conditions of boom and bust along with prosperity and depression. By controlling the flow of currency these Elitists control economies, and thus control men. Also,many of the influential politicians,judges and government bureaucrats have been bought and paid for by these powerful men. Many members of the Political Class have lost their independence and are nothing but puppets on a string. Included in this conspiracy is control over the flow of information. In America most of the major broadcast networks,media and newspapers are controlled by a handful of these same Elitists. Now,out of almost nowhere comes the Internet. At a person’s fingertips is a literal goldmine of information. Information that was accessible in the past only by deep research that was more often then not years behind in being revealed. Today,we can get controversial information within seconds,often in real time as its happening. For years the Elitists could rely on the control of information to help guide events to their advantage. Today this is no longer the case. The biggest danger to these Elites that want to rule over us is the truth. These same Elitists don’t have to “shut down” the Internet but instead control it’s content of information. In other words control the “truth.” The old adage that “Knowledge Is Power” comes into play. He that controls the dissemination of knowledge has the power. So,along with Public Education,most of Academia,the Main Stream Media,Hollywood and TV the Elitists want to add the Internet as under their control. Judging by past events in history,they’ll use the Hegelian tactic to create and control a crisis and then use their puppet politicians and judges to criminalize any opposition to their power grab. The Elitist’s goal? Total control over the Information age communications known as the Internet.
libertarian jerry | Jul 15, 2012 | Reply
Tyler:
As Crisis and Leviathan well documents, what government does and gets away with during “crisis” periods once, will most likely next be seen in an amplified version. I thus believe it to be not merely conjecture, but extremely likely, that the Department of Homeland Security, under the direction of the President, would invoke these emergency powers not to “prioritize,” but to simply shut down civilian communication as “non-essential” during an emergency real or imagined—as did BART’s temporary director here.
Further, my missive is not lambasting a political figure: in the past 11 years, we have witnessed executive power grab on steroids, and we at the Independent Institute have warned time and again that such powers are dangerous in any human hands.
I would characterize this piece informed projection rather than conjecture, and I find it difficult to believe that anyone old enough to have been a fully functioning adult before and since 9/11, with the increasing demonstrations of “emergency” powers chipping away at daily individual rights and liberties, is not similarly alarmed.
Thank you for your comments.
With best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jul 15, 2012 | Reply
Obama doesn’t “get” the benefits of real freedom. Never has, never will.
Henry Bowman | Jul 16, 2012 | Reply
the global police state rolls on and picks up pace. I shudder at the world my kids will grow up in as slaves to the elites
judgedredd | Jul 16, 2012 | Reply