COG is predicated on the assumption that the military will act as a force-multiplier for local law enforcement, which in this age of militarised policing are already highly-repressive organisations replete with military-grade firepower, but also less than lethal weaponry, equipment and special operations units better-suited for the battlefield than an urban setting in a typical American city.

While September 11 may have been the catastrophic and catalyzing event, referenced by the now-defunct Project for a New American Century, COG planning has been in the works for decades, as were Pentagon blueprints for the invasion and occupation of Central Asia and the Middle East.

Predating 9/11, COG is viewed by elite policy planners as an instrument for the continuity of a repressive national security state, one targeting first and foremost, the American people. COG, as an instrumentality for containing the internal threat, is predicated on defending the capitalist mode of production and the political/social relations of class society as it enters a period of profound crisis.

In terms of a repressive discourse, NORTHCOM, under Public Law 109-364, or the John Warner defence Authorization Act of 2007, signed into law by president Bush on October 17, 2006, allows the chief executive to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in the U.S. The law also permits the president to usurp control of state-based national guard units, even without the consent of the governor or local authorities in the affected region, to suppress public disorder. Frank Morales, exposing the onerous nature of the law writes,

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is martial law.

The law also facilitates militarised police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called “illegal aliens,” “potential terrorists” and other “undesirables” for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That’s right. Under the cover of a trumped-up “immigration emergency” and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration. …

The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact.⁸

 

^From

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/continuity-of-government-the-endgame-scenario/