Which Way to the Camps?

by Gina L. Diorio

How would you like to know you could be carted off to a military installation at the whim of the Secretary of Homeland Security? 

If that sounds ominous, it should.

But that’s what could happen under a bill proposed last month by Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL).

The National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (HR 645) requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to “establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations.” And according to the bill text, the four-fold purpose of the centers will be:

• To provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster;
• To provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of Federal, State, and local first responders;
• To provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and non-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations; and
• To meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

This bill, introduced with (understandably) no fanfare, rings several civil-liberty alarm bells.

First, the phrase “other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security” leaves the door wide open to every imaginable (and as-of-yet unimaginable) scenario. What constitutes an “appropriate need”?  Political dissent? Under this bill, it could. (And anyone who thinks otherwise should take a moment to reflect on the use of the Constitutional “necessary and proper” clause to justify a slew of federal laws unimagined by the drafters of that founding document.)

Second, as WorldNetDaily columnist Jerome R. Corsi writes,

The bill also appears to expand the president’s emergency power, much as the executive order signed by President Bush on May 9, 2007, that, as WND reported, gave the president the authority to declare an emergency and take over the direction of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments without even consulting Congress.

The executive order to which Corsi refers is the National Security and Homeland Security and Presidential Directive which, according to WND,

… establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.

"Catastrophic emergency" is loosely defined as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

Additionally, by making no mention of Congress, the directive, as noted by Corsi, “appears to negate any a [sic] requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists, suggesting instead that the powers of the executive order can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.”

Any attempt – regardless of the possible well-meaning motivations behind it – to vest such sweeping authority in one or even a few individuals is a dangerous affront to civil liberties.

All it would take to tip the scale from providing “emergency relief” to effecting a complete suspension of habeas corpus is the whim of just one or, at most, a few, and under an allowance such as this, the distance between good intentions and despotism becomes short, indeed.

Rep. Hastings’ bill now rests in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Armed Services, where it should rightfully die a swift death.

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Gina L. Diorio is a full-time freelance writer. Please visit her website at www.LibertyWritingSolutions.com.