Posted on 10/25/2001 7:24:53 AM PDT by It'salmosttolate
YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE …
Florida under martial law?
Rumors persist despite official denial from
Jeb Bush administration
By Sarah Foster
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
WHO KNEW? Jeb Bush signed Florida TWO YEAR emergency order 4 days BEFORE ATTACK
Those words, as frightening as they are shocking, headlined one of several Internet articles that appeared in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Published Sept. 24 on PsyOpNews, the article unequivocally proclaimed:
"Seems like everybody and his uncle knew about this attack in advance. Inside traders and governments and even good ol' Jeb Bush. He took over Florida four days before the attack. Bye, bye Florida. Hello, General Jeb." Then challenged, "Now, how many states does that leave us in the Union?"
In a similar vein, Jeff Rense on Sept. 23 ran a piece on his website, www.rense.com, headed "Jeb Declared Martial Law In FL On 9-7." Two days earlier, at Lawgiver.org readers were provided with details about "Martial Law in Florida."
"In case you haven't figured it out, Florida is under martial law and will remain so until this EO (executive order) is revoked," the author stated bluntly.
The articles sparked a flurry of e-mails to WorldNetDaily. Did we know that the governor "immediately" after the Trade Center's second tower fell had issued an executive order, with no termination date, declaring a state of emergency? Did we know that the governor had made the interim head of the Division of Emergency Management into a czar of anti-terrorist operations, giving him the power to seize land and personal property and order people evacuated from their homes? Were we aware that Bush had mobilized the National Guard just four days earlier?
WorldNetDaily investigated. The articles provided links directly to the executive orders themselves, and these were exactly as described. Bush, through Executive Order 01-261, had activated units of the Florida National Guard on Sept. 7, four days before the kamikaze assault on the Trade Center. His second executive order, EO 01-262, did in fact delegate awesome powers to a non-elected official, the interim head of the Division of Emergency Management, the agency responsible for implementing Florida's Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. Moreover, the governor issued it shortly after the attacks, strongly suggesting he had been apprised of events ahead of time and was ready to sign the order with a stroke of his pen as soon as he received an appropriate signal.
There was just one problem with the scenario: As of late September, there were no reports in either the press or on the Internet of properties being seized, of people being rousted from their beds and hauled away in the dead of night, or of soldiers patrolling the streets of Tallahassee, Tampa and other Florida cities. Although the Florida code acknowledges the implicit power of a governor to declare martial law, it wasn't clear from the information at hand whether he had actually done so by executive order. Officials in the Jeb Bush administration vehemently denied he had.
"Absolutely not," exclaimed Jim Loftus of the Division of Emergency Management, when asked if the state of Florida was under martial law.
"The governor [in EO 01-262] invoked Statute 252 [of Title XVII] in Florida law that grants him emergency powers and allowed him to issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency," Loftus said. "The statute gives the governor a broad array of power in Florida, basically because if Florida were to be threatened with another Hurricane Andrew or any kind of disaster, like fires, the governor has to be able to direct state resources as quickly as possible in order to protect the health and safety of Floridians. The legislature (in the early '90s) agreed with this and made a statute that gives him this power."
The governor's press office responded to WorldNetDaily queries by forwarding a letter that Daniel Woodring, Bush's assistant general counsel, had written to a concerned Floridian explaining the executive orders.
"While Governor Bush has taken appropriate steps to deal with this terror attack, he has not in any shape, form or fashion, instituted martial law in Florida," Woodring wrote. "Martial law is when military authorities control all civilian affairs, and military law, not civilian law, is followed. The civilian authorities in Florida are fully operational and fully in control."
Perhaps it was because of effective damage control as much as the lack of any reported abuses of power, but e-mails about martial law stopped as abruptly as they had begun. Almost overnight the matter seemed to have disappeared from the radarscope of public concerns. That is until last week, when WND editors were suddenly inundated with e-mails asking if there was any truth to reports that Florida was under military command. Attention was again directed to the executive orders and to the more recent deployment of National Guard units at airports. But as before, there were no corroborating accounts of military-police actions or other indications of martial law.
WorldNetDaily investigated further. Here is what was found.
The executive orders
On Sept. 7, Bush signed EO 01-261, delegating to the adjutant general "all necessary authority … to order members of the Florida National Guard into active service … for the purpose of training to support law-enforcement personnel and emergency-management personnel in the event of civil disturbances or natural disasters and to provide training support to law-enforcement personnel and community-based organizations relating to counter drug operations."
The order is set to expire June 30, 2003, unless revoked earlier. In his letter, Woodring described it as a "routine" training order that "allowed the activation of select members of the National Guard to assist the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in training for port security and protection." It was issued to place "select members on active duty, so that if they were injured during the training they would be eligible for health and medical benefits only available to members on active duty."
Woodring said the order did not give the Florida National Guard any authority over civilian matters.
EO 01-262 was signed Sept. 11 and reads in part: "The scale of the destruction and the coordination, orchestration, and timing evident in these acts of terrorism suggest that they may be part of a larger pattern of acts of terrorism; … I hereby declare that a state of emergency exists in the State of Florida."
(Long story-continued here http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25051
Hardly "martial law" - he's simply fulfilling the Constitutional mandate for the government to provide for the equipping and training of an organized militia, and is doing so based on past experiences where the equipment and training were shown severely lacking.
Only takes a few key words to electrify a tinfoil hat.
Wow. Seems kind of like a smoking gun.
1) Has anybody looked at EO's from other states? Is Bush the _only_ governor to issue such orders?
2) Can everybody here imagine what WE would be saying if Klinton were still in office and HIS relative had called up the national guard FOUR DAYS BEFORE a national emergency?
3) Florida Freepers -- What's up down there? Do you guys and gals have anything to report? IS there martial law?
Mark W.
Besides, you may give our Attorney General in-exile, Janet Reno, some bad ideas.
Leni
The Florida Constitution states clearly: The right of Florida citzens to keep and bear vota-matics shall not be infringed.
Let's all get a class action case against wnd because everyone that has responded so far is basicially saying they are liers and insiting terror.
Anyone like to step forward and take the Bullsh*# by the horns?
Believe me, if Florida citizens were under martial law, they would know it without having to research it.
This would appear to be bad timing at best and, at worst, a case of a brother giving a brother a heads up that "something" was gonna happen "soon."
Either way, no harm, no foul, no tanks, no storm troopers.
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