Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness | Hacker News Reader

Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness

whitehouse.gov

11 pointsjackfoxy7 comments

On initial reading, I think This order has a very high chance of increasing the cost of doing business and especially burdening startups. As I read it, the government is asserting the authority to deem any industry as a "critical national resource", and then come in and require that your industry adopt the practices that THEY prescribe to HELP you secure your resources against attack.

This seems to be directed initially at power plants and water supplies. But the stated list of industries includes virtually any business in the US.

I am certain that the largest business and monopolists will make a killing in receiving the benefit of subsidies and reduced competition under this order. But it is just one more barrier that new firms have to hurdle to enter a market.

tl;dr, but I know those are very important. Can someone knowing how to read this, can shorten it out for others?

Thanks.

I'm not a legalese ninja by any stretch, but the way that I read it, it basically codifies the military-industrial complex, including assigning who in the government is responsible for whom in the population as it pertains to constantly and continuously manufacturing means of finding and killing people.

Generally, it outlines the whitehouse agenda to continue to integrate and coordinate municipalities, state governments, and corporate partners.

The amount of information necessary to carry out large scale coordinated efforts of defense vastly exceed the capabilities of existing protocol.

Obama, a "constitutional lawyer", says right off the bat that he has "the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America" as a way to structure a legal framework for a new foundation of national security operations.

Critics are quick to point out that these seizures of power is completely unconstitutional and any legal arguments are based on some sort of fraud.

Whether this is truly "good" or "bad" ultimately depends on how all of this plays out for the American people in the long term.

Section 304 defines the right to subsidize oil companies if the cost of supply goes up. It also allows them to create loan guarantees of any size to prop up a favored industry or business.

Section 308 gives the right to the government to install THEIR OWN equipment in a private facility and to expand it and determine the operating procedure for that facility that the government deems to be in the best interest of preserving a critical resource.

The government could basically take over any private industry or sector under this order for the purposes of national defense whether we are in a state of emergency OR NOT.

It's an update to a very similar order from 1994:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/pd...

If it hasn't been important to you in the last 18 years, I wouldn't worry about it now.

I don't think that's the best approach to protecting our freedoms. While many of the provisions in the previous act are similar, I think the new order expands the power to go beyond merely protecting the flow of materials and equipment under government contract, to encompass virtually any industrial process or service that the government deems critical.

I think it's important to examine the order, determine why and how it was revised, and understand what political forces are aligned behind its revision.

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