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White House revises post-disaster protocol The Bush administration is writing a new plan to maintain governmental control in the wake of an apocalyptic terrorist attack or overwhelming natural disaster, moving such doomsday planning for the first time from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to officials inside the White House. The policy requires all government agencies to have clear lines of succession if top officials are killed and be prepared to operate from a new headquarters within 12 hours of a catastrophe. They must be prepared "to lead and sustain the nation during a crisis" -- a charge ranging from "providing leadership visible to the nation and the world" to "bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks." The policy replaces a Clinton-era "continuity in government" post-disaster plan. The old plan is classified, but security specialists and administration officials said the new policy centralizes control of such planning in the White House and puts a greater emphasis on terrorism spurring the catastrophe. Bush quietly signed the new policy on May 4. The unclassified portion of his "homeland security-national security presidential directive" -- a special kind of executive order that can be kept secret -- was also posted on the White House website on May 9, without any further announcement or press briefings. The new policy focuses on a worst-case scenario in which a terrorist nuclear bomb explodes without warning and wipes out much of the nation's top leadership. Older plans were instead premised on a Cold War-era long-range missile attack, presuming it would be detected in enough time to evacuate the president and other top government officials. The unexpected arrival of the new policy has received little attention in the mainstream media, but it has prompted discussion among legal specialists, homeland security experts and Internet commentators -- including concerns that the policy may be written in such a way that makes it too easy to invoke emergency presidential powers such as martial law. The public portion of the new "National Continuity Policy" contains few details about how surviving officials would invoke emergency powers, or when emergency powers should be deemed to be no longer necessary so that the elected democracy can resume. The answers to such questions may be contained in a classified appendix which has not been made public. The unanswered questions have provoked anxiety across ideological lines. The conservative commentator Jerome Corsi , for example, wrote in a much-linked online column that the directive looked like a recipe for allowing the office of the presidency to seize "dictatorial powers" because the policy does not discuss consulting Congress about when to invoke emergency powers -- or when to turn them off....
Mosques awarded Homeland Security grants - CAIR urges Muslim clerics to cash in on federal funds While the European Union investigates mosques for ties to Islamic terrorism, the U.S. government is giving mosques security grants that are designed to protect churches, synagogues and other nonprofit groups from Islamic terror. Most recently, the Islamic Society of Baltimore landed a $15,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to upgrade security at its Maryland mosque. The Council on American-Islamic Relations since April has been urging leaders of mosques and Islamic schools across the nation to apply for the DHS grants, even though the agency's program was set up to help protect nonprofit facilities that are at high risk for attacks by Islamic terrorists. In a recent "Action Alert" posted on its website, CAIR encouraged its Muslim members to take advantage of $24 million in federal funds DHS has made available – specifically, DHS says, for nonprofit organizations "deemed high-risk for a potential international terrorist attack." Organizations in 46 urban areas designated high risk for Islamic terror attack are eligible to participate in the new Nonprofit Security Grant Program. Several Islamic institutions already have applied and are receiving government approval. U.S. officials who spoke to WND on condition of anonymity expressed dismay that CAIR would drain limited federal funds away from higher risk targets for terrorism. They argue mosques are among the lowest risk for such attacks....
FBI: Violent Crime Still Increasing Violent crime kept climbing in 2006, a top FBI official said Wednesday, previewing a report detailing nationwide increases in murders, robberies and other felonies for a second straight year. The rising crime rate, in an FBI report expected next week, counters Justice Department attempts to tamp down violence by sending more funds to local police and studying U.S. cities for clues on how the increase began. Asked if the report would show crime rates are still rising, FBI Assistant Director John Miller said: "I think you can anticipate it will." He declined to say by how much. Miller said the FBI's findings will largely mirror those of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington think-tank that in March reported spikes in the number of big-city murders, robberies and gun crimes. That survey "showed that there would be, in all likelihood, a continued uptick in violent crime, particularly among midsized American cities," Miller said during an interview taped for C-SPAN's Newsmakers program. "The data we're going to release Monday will contain no big surprises in that regard." Preliminary numbers the FBI released in December showed violent crimes rose by 3.7 percent nationwide during the first six months of 2006....
Campaign Puts New Strain on Secret Service The U.S. Secret Service expects to borrow more than 2,000 immigration officers and federal airport screeners next year to help guard an ever-expanding field of presidential candidates, while shifting 250 of its own agents from investigations to security details. Burdened by the White House's wartime security needs, the persistent threat of terrorism and a field of at least 20 presidential contenders, the Secret Service was showing signs of strain even before the Department of Homeland Security ordered protection for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as of May 3, the earliest a candidate has ever been assigned protection in an election season. Its $110 million-plus budget for campaign protection -- two-thirds more than the record $65 million it spent for the 2004 election -- was prepared when the service did not expect to be guarding Obama or anyone else until January. The agency has already been forced to scale back its efforts to battle counterfeiting and cybercrime. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has doubled the number of officials granted Secret Service protection, from 26 to 54, including top White House aides such as the chief of staff and national and homeland security advisers. Founded as part of the Treasury Department in 1865 to combat counterfeiting and tapped in 1901 as guardian of presidents, the service is best known for protecting individuals. By law, the agency guards presidents, vice presidents, candidates, their families and visiting heads of state. The president can also extend protection by executive memorandum. But the service has taken on added homeland security jobs in recent years, such as screening White House mail and coordinating security at national events such as presidential conventions and Super Bowls. And while its budget has grown 50 percent since 2001, the number of agents, uniformed officers and support staff has increased by about 20 percent, to 6,500....
Supreme Court ruling OKs cops storming our bedrooms There were some adolescent smirks among the crowd as the U.S. Supreme Court solemnly deliberated the case of Max Rettele and Judy Sadler this spring. How odd, then, that -- as with the dog that did not bark in the famous Sherlock Holmes story -- no one seems to have noticed the most important thing about this 6-year-old case was the question that no judge ever asked. At 7 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2001 (the earliest moment police could act, because they had no "nighttime endorsement,") the Lancaster, Calif., couple were in bed in their home when Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in possession of a search warrant banged on the front door. Chase Hall, Ms. Sadler's 17-year-old son, opened the door to find five deputies leveling guns in his face. Rather than present their warrant and give anyone a chance to read it, the cops ordered the youth to the floor and fanned out through the house. Three deputies burst into the bedroom, ordering Mr. Rettele and Ms. Sadler -- who had bought the home three months before -- to get out of bed and show their hands. Police denied them permission even to grab a sheet or blanket to cover their nakedness. A few minutes later, the deputies apologized to the couple and decided they would be allowed to clothe themselves. Although the address on the warrant matched the couple's residence, it soon became evident the targets of the search, three suspected identity thieves, had moved out before Mr. Rettele and Ms. Sadler moved in. The suspects being sought were African-Americans; Rettele and Sadler are unmistakably white. Not placated by the deputies' apologies, the couple sued the officers and Los Angeles County, complaining they had been victims of an "unreasonable search" in violation of the Fourth Amendment....