http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2174/Is-Janet-Napolitano-Gunning-for-Rush-Limbaughs-Job-by-Executive-Order.aspx
I don’t know. But on July 6 — a holiday-weekend Friday — the White House posted an Executive Order setting up Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security as the uber-communications authority during a national emergency with some peculiar little clauses that make me wonder. (Hat tip: John L. Work.)
Obama’s Order creates an Executive Committee for National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) under the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, and a Executive Committee Joint Program Office under the Secretary of Homeland Security to support the Executive Committee.
That’s the blah-blah part. The parts enumerating duties and powers, however, despite the same mind-numbing official patois, seem like anything but hot air.
Sec. 5.2. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall:…
(d) receive, integrate, and disseminate NS/EP communications information to the Federal Government and State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as appropriate, to establish situational awareness, priority setting recommendations, and a common operating picture for NS/EP communications information;
(e) satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial, Government, and privately owned communications resources, when appropriate;
I sure hope Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et al have read this part. Then again, it is not only “communications resources” featuring conservative radio hosts that could come under such a wide-open clause. Is DHS now waiting in the wings to seize — sorry: “satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial … and privately owned” radio networks “when appropriate”?