The federal government’s reflexive denial of any blame in the matter meant that FEMA’s director, Michael Brown, had to go. An obvious scapegoat, he had been given the wrong portfolio to deal with the job at hand. FEMA’s fortune in funds and the government’s efforts had long been focused elsewhere.
In order to be able to understand the likelihood of an apparently democratic and bureaucratic society like the United States being subjected to cataclysms of the kind that occur in The Washington Decree, it is necessary to know certain specific terminology that is used throughout the novel, the most important of which is explained in the pages that follow. I have also included a list of the executive orders employed in the event of a national emergency.
—Jussi Adler-Olsen
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my wife, Hanne Adler-Olsen, for inspiration and many good observations. Without her, the pleasure of writing would not have been present.
Thanks also to Henning Kure, Jesper Helbo, Tomas Stender, Eddie Kiran, Elsebeth Wæhrens, Rasmus Dahlberg, and Søren Schou for their insightful commentary. Thanks to Gitte and Peter Q. Rannes and the Danish Writers and Translators Center in Hald for providing essential peace and quiet to complete this book.
Thanks to Kjeld Skjærbæk, who patiently accompanied me to Virginia to interview weapon dealers and museum personnel, as well as the man on the street and many others.
Thanks to Henrik Rehr and Jeannie Kim, who tuned us into everyday life in the United States. Thanks to Patricia White for introducing me to New York street language, and thanks for the friendly reception at the Lynchburg Museum and by the local weapon dealers and pawnbrokers in Front Royal.
A big thank-you to my American translator, Steve Schein, and Carl Pedersen, Center for the Study of the Americas, for refining my knowledge.
APPENDIX
THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
Federal agency created by the National Security Act of 1947, whose purpose is to advise the president about national, international, and military affairs related to national security. The president is chairman of the NSC. The other members are the vice president, the secretary of the interior, and the secretary of defense. Advisors include the chief of staff, the director of the CIA, and others who the president may choose, with Senate approval. The NSC staff is headed by the national security advisor, who is considered an important guide for the president.
FEMA: FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Federal agency originally created by executive order during the Nixon presidency for the purpose of dealing with the catastrophic situations that could arise in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. Since then, the agency has been made responsible for coordinating all other kinds of preparedness in the event of a national emergency. All of Nixon’s successors have added new decrees to refine and strengthen the agency, to the point where it is the most powerful organ in the United States today—even compared with the executive branch and Congress. It has the authority to suspend laws, resettle entire sections of the population, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant, and imprison them without a trial. The agency may confiscate and take control of property, food depots, transportation networks, and may even suspend the US Constitution. A group of officials are employed by FEMA whose primary task is to be ready to overtake the duties normally performed by members of Congress—indeed, the duties of all government officials, including the president himself. Thus, a shadow government under FEMA is permanently available in the event of a catastrophe that requires the replacement of elected politicians.
The legal basis for FEMA is established without congressional ratification; executive orders need merely be published in the Federal Registry to become valid. Congress has absolutely no influence regarding FEMA’s duties, budget, strategy, or development.
FEMA’s budget is enormous, but since the agency was created, only about 6 percent has been spent on matters directly related to national emergencies. The rest has been used on the hiring and training of a huge personnel apparatus, the building up of an unbelievably refined infrastructure, plus the construction of giant subterranean complexes to protect important federal government officials in the event of a national emergency, whether the cause be domestic or foreign. Executive Order 12656 appoints the National Security Council as FEMA’s steering body, enabling an incumbent government to increase all forms of intelligence gathering on—and surveillance of—American citizens, impose drastic limits on their movement within the country, and segregate massive groups of civilians. Accordingly, the National Guard is given the authority to close all the country’s borders and take over control of airports and harbors.
Listed below are a few of the executive orders that are at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disposal, where the US Constitution and Bill of Rights can be instantly overridden by a mere presidential signature:
Executive Order 10990
Allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
Executive Order 10995
Allows the government to seize and control the communication media, including radio, television, newspapers, telephones, the Internet, and much more. This executive order suspends the First Amendment.
Executive Order 10997
Allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels, and minerals.
Executive Order 10998
Allows the government to seize all means of transportation—including personal cars, trucks, or vehicles of any kind—and gives it total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.
Executive Order 10999
Allows the government to take over all food resources and farms. All private, unsupervised stockpiling and hoarding is forbidden.
Executive Order 11000
Allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
Executive Order 11001
Allows the government to take over all health, education, and welfare functions.
Executive Order 11002
Authorizes the postmaster general to carry out a national registration of all persons.
Executive Order 11003
Allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
Executive Order 11004
Allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.
Executive Order 11005
Allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways, and public storage facilities.
Executive Order 11049
Authorizes federal departments and agencies to manage emergency preparedness, consolidating twenty-one operative executive orders issued over a fifteen-year period.
Executive Order 11051
Specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all executive orders into effect in times of increased international tension and economic or financial crisis.
Executive Order 11310
Authorizes the Department of Justice to enforce executive orders, to implement industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaisons, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the president.
Executive Order 11490
Gives the president control over all US citizens, businesses, and churches.
Executive Order 11921
Allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, energy sources, wages, salaries, credit, and the flow of money in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that a state of emergency declared by the president may not be reviewed by Congress for six months.
&n
bsp; Executive Order 12565
Deals with the definition of “a state of emergency,” the government takeover of all municipal judicial functions, the enforcement of price control, the banning of entering or leaving the country, the control of all travel within the country, the expansion of compulsory military service, and much more.
Executive Order 12919
Instructs public servants in how to be prepared to take over control of practically all aspects of the national economy in the event of a state of emergency.
Executive Order 13010
Instructs FEMA in how to take control of all state institutions in the event of a state of emergency.
With these executive orders and others, FEMA is given unlimited authority in all crisis situations, including a military state of emergency.
A military state of emergency can be declared as a result of natural catastrophes, stock market crises, computer crashes (like the predicted Y2K crisis at the change of the millennium), power outages, riots, and biological weapon attacks—in short, anything that can lead to the breakdown of society and the forces of law and order.
All US citizens are liable to arrest and imprisonment without charge in the event of a military state of emergency. Freedom of speech and the right of assembly may be suspended and censorship of the media implemented.
The right to own and bear weapons may also be suspended. The military and National Guard will be empowered to search private homes and businesses, and confiscate weapons and hoarded foodstuffs, without a warrant.
FEMA has far-reaching authority in every aspect of society, but this is nothing new. Already in 1983 General Frank Salzedo, the chief of FEMA’s civil preparedness department, declared that, as he saw it, FEMA’s role was “a brand new bulwark against the assassination of civil and state leaders and the sabotage of, and attacks on, civil and military institutions, as well as the influence of political dissent on opinion—in the United States or globally—in times of crisis.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jussi Adler-Olsen is Denmark’s #1 crime writer and a New York Times bestselling author. His books routinely top the bestseller lists in Europe and have sold more than fifteen million copies around the world. His many prestigious Nordic crime-writing awards include the Glass Key Award, also won by Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Stieg Larsson, and Peter Høeg.
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The Washington Decree Page 63