A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
President Obama will be remembered as one of the chief architects of the American police state. His preventive detention law nullifies due process, leaving citizens naked to the whims of the executive. Now Obama has empowered himself to seize control of all the nation’s communications systems, under the guise of emergency preparedness. “The ‘emergency’ he has in mind is a State of Emergency – martial law.
Obama’s Media Takeover Powers: The Infrastructure of a Police State
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“He has authorized the imposition of total silence except for the sound of his own voice.”
Earlier this month, on a Friday evening after most of the White House press corps had gone home, President Obama gave himself the power to take over executive order
Clearly, in a legitimate emergency, the government needs ways to communicate – but that does not require a monopoly. So, why is Obama giving himself – and any president that follows him into the Oval Office – a total communications on-and-off switch?
The administration claims it is authorized to bring all communications under its control by the 1934 Communications Act, which allows the takeover of broadcast stations and other wireless media if there exists a state of war, or the threat of war. Back then, of course, the public was fairly sure that they knew what “war” was: Congresses declared it. The “threat” of war was pretty self-evident, too: it was when other nations were threatening to attack the United States, or vice-versa.
However, we are now in what both Presidents Bush and Obama have made clear is a perpetual war, a war that is not defined by any legal norms or foundational statutes, a war against whoever the president decides is the enemy – which can include American citizens. Both of these War Presidents have told us in multitudinous ways that we are on a war footing – and have not been off it since 9/11, and will not be on any other kind of footing until some future president gives the “all clear” sign.
“He is methodically preparing the infrastructure for a police state.”
Obama’s executive order has nothing to do with getting out an effective distress call to the nation during a crisis. The “emergency” he has in mind is a State of Emergency – martial law. He is methodically preparing the infrastructure for a police state. Obama already has in place his preventive detention legislation, which he signed into law in the news-less hours of last New Year’s Eve. It empowers the president to lock up whomever he chooses, without charges or trial, and to keep them for as long as the executive sees fit. Based on the near-limitless powers Obama already claims to possess, he can also kill such enemies of the state if that is in the interests of national security in this time of war. There is nothing that he recognizes as law that says he can’t take such drastic executive action against thousands, or tens of thousands of Americans in one sweep.
And now, with his new executive order, if the president finds it convenient, he can take over the national communications network – down to the last, feeble Internet voice – to explain why it was necessary for all those people to disappear.
Or maybe he’ll say nothing at all. And nobody else will dare to say anything, either.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Thank you for your support in 2022. Black Agenda Report Will Return on January 4, 2023.
The effort to save an African cemetery from destruction and desecration, witnessing Cuba and the Black liberation connection, and the impact of a Supreme Court decision in Moore v. Harper.
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is a longtime contributor to Black Agenda Report and the author of No Fear: A Whistelebower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA. She is also the founder of…
Lee Robinson is President of the African Awareness Association. He joins us to discuss that organization’s work, Cuba's role in liberation movement, and a tour to Cuba which will take place in…
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Moore v. Harper, a case brought by North Carolina legislators who argue for the discredited “independent state legislature” theory. Eliza Sweren-Becker…
