Since WW II, America has had contingency plans in case of large-scale disasters or attacks. However, since the late 1960s, at the height of anti-Vietnam war protests, focus has been mainly on controlling dissent.

On October 30, 1969, Richard Nixon signed Executive Order (EO) 11490, "Assigning Emergency Preparedness Functions to Federal Departments and Agencies." It consolidated 21 previous emergency preparedness EOs and two Defense Mobilization Orders issued between 1951 - 1966.

In 1976, Gerald Ford signed EO 11921 ordering the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency (FEPA) to let government take over all essential functions in case of an undefined "national emergency." In other words, to give government dictatorial powers by simply seizing them.

In 1979, Jimmie Carter signed EO 12148 establishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to replace FEPA. Clinton later made its director a cabinet position, and Bush gave DHS control under its Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate.

On inception, FEMA mandated an interface with the Defense Department (DOD), appointed an "emergency czar," and authorized the strategic relocation of industries, services, government, and other essential economic activities should conditions warrant. Little known is that FEMA spends most of its budget for "black operations," not disaster relief, although the latter makes headlines. Further, the president has emergency powers to declare martial law, activate FEMA's extraordinary powers, and run the country with other agencies like a police state for no other reason than to quell legitimate dissent - against war, abusive federal power, or an economic depression.

In 1988, Ronald Regan signed EO 12656 empowering the National Security Council as the principal body in charge of emergency powers and let the government increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of US citizens. It also restricted free movement, authorized the seizure of property, construction of detention camps, and isolation of US civilians in them.

Numerous other EOs followed to let government control:

-- all forms of transportation, including highways, airports, rail, seaports, inland waterways, and more;

-- the media and all forms of communication;

-- all forms of energy;

-- food and farms;

-- brigades in which civilians would be placed under government supervision;

-- health, education, and welfare functions;

-- the registration of all persons into a national database;

-- the relocation of communities, areas to be abandoned, and building of new housing in designated places;

-- implementation of all emergency measures in times of international tensions and economic or financial crises; and

-- empowering the Justice Department (DOJ) to operate penal and correctional institutions along with FEMA for its own camps.

The Bush administration funded FEMA with hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit former military bases and construct other facilities as detention camps. According to a November 2008 Wall Street Journal article, "Intelligence Policy (will) Stay Largely Intact" under Obama who recognized and legitimized its existence for use in case of a "national emergency" declarable for any reason, real or contrived.

Currently, over 800 camps are in every state, ready for use if ordered, with enough capacity for many tens of thousands of internees. They're not ordinary in any sense. They're concentration prison camps in the true sense of the term for dissidents or whomever is to be interned for whatever reason, at any time, and for any designated period on command of the president, others he directs, and FEMA as a police state operational arm. Some may turn into Guantanamo on the Mississippi, the Chesapeake Bay, the Lake Michigan lakefront outside Chicago, or neighborhoods anywhere or close by.

Local police have been militarized to help and much more, according to a March 13 Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com article headlined: "Police Trained Nationwide That Informed Americans Are Domestic Terrorists." In other words, enemies of the state are people who know their rights and demand them, who support progressive issues, who want more from government than betrayal, and who believe democracy and the rule of law are sacred and must be defended.

Prison Planet got a copy of a Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report it described as "outlandish (and) shocking," and most likely it's replicated throughout the country. It concentrated mostly on a so-called "militia movement" but "conflate(d) it with supporters of Ron Paul, Constitution Party presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin, and former congressman Bob Barr as 'militia' influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters" of libertarian parties, issues, and people opposed to the North American Union and New World Order.

The MIAC report is similar to a Phoenix FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force one under Clinton that designated constitutional defenders as "right-wing extremists." The MIAC document "expands significantly on the earlier" one and represents the latest example of police state plans under Democrat as well as Republican administrations - a very disturbing prospect at a very grim time for most people.

Everything discussed above is real and worrisome at a time the greatest ever economic crisis is deepening, government policies are corrupted, broken, and uncaring for deprived millions, so sooner or later public anger will erupt, but when it does severe crackdowns await it.

Obama promised change. Few understood that he meant abandoning the millions who elected him, looting the national wealth for fraudsters, and crushing public dissent should it erupt. Given growing impoverishment and pain, it's hard imagining it won't. It's only a matter of when and how much - but then what.