You may only store so much food

We have all heard rumors that big brother was going to take over our weapons and our food supplies in the event of a national disaster, well here is a little tid-bit of information for you to digest this morning with your fresh orange juice.

The governments can in a dictate to you, an American citizen just how much provisions and supplies you may legally store up. These series of laws or more common Executive Orders as they are identified as are identified as federal anti-hoarding legislation. This type of legislation is not restricted to the federal government alone for some states even have similar laws enacted. If you were to complete a search of federal documents you may not discover any sort of legislation aimed directly at omission of food storage in emergencies, however, that does not indicate that food storing is legal. Let me clarify that to you.

EO’s are short for Executive Orders and they have been exercised since the time of George Washington. In fact, our FBI was created because of a Presidential Executive Order in 1908. In 1916, President Wilson first used the EO as an emergency measure and he thus encouraged congress to corroborate it. Congress approves of it and the door then was opened for President over-riding of the Constitution. This is the very same method was used by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, to shut down all the American banks. This was the time when an order was issued instructing all Americans to turn in to the banks all their privately held gold.

The general rationale behind the executive order was to afford the President a instrument by which laws passed by congress could be executed and not for the purpose of controlling our lives. The EOs are suppose to be issued by the President as orders to federal agencies accountable for implementing national laws.

Unfortunately, some presidents have taken the concept of Executive Orders a bit too far in that they have confused EO with the ability of executive lawmaking. Due to our founding fathers placing the accountability for executing laws within the hands of the President the issuing of EOs is a proper method of accomplishing these responsibilities if they remain within the limits as set forth in our Constitution. During his time in office, President Kennedy endorsed 214 Executive Orders. These orders were created to bring about positive change for our nation such as:

• EO 11063 – Promoted Equal Opportunity in Housing
• EO 10914 – The start of Food Distribution to Needy Families
• EO 11022 – The Council on Aging
• EO 11925 – Promotion of Equal Opportunity in Employment

The major difference in the Kennedy EOs and those of other Presidential issued EQ is that Kennedy’s are aimed at safeguarding individual liberties and not in commandeering them. Many existing EOs tend to overstep the Constitutional authority and as a consequence they are an constitutionally illegal.

The concept of federal anti-hoarding legislation may have originated from the following EO. First President Clinton took sev4ral EO’s dating back to 1939, and grouped them under one Executive Orders EO #12919 released June 6, 1994. The combined orders were as follows:

10995--Federal seizure of all communications media in the US
10997--Federal seizure of all electric power, fuels, minerals, public and private
10998--Federal seizure of all food supplies and resources, public and private and all farms and equipment
10999--Federal seizure of all means of transportation, including cars, trucks, or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and water ways
11000--Federal seizure of American people for work forces under federal supervision, including the splitting up of families if the government so desires
11001--Federal seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private
11002--Empowers the Postmaster General to register every single person in the US
11003--Federal seizure of all airports and aircraft
11004--Federal seizure of all housing and finances and authority to establish forced relocation. Authority to designate areas to be abandoned as "unsafe," establish new locations for populations, relocate communities, build new housing with public funds
11005--Seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, both public and private
11051--Provides FEMA complete authorization to put above orders into effect in times of increased international tension of economic or financial crisis (FEMA will be in control incase of "National Emergency").

These EOs were not originally intended to encourage anti-hoarding but rather provide a tool for seizure of items and facilities "to provide a state of readiness in these resource areas with respect to all conditions of national emergency, including attack upon the United States." These Executive Orders fail to define exactly what constitutes a national emergency and perhaps this is as it should be. The specifics involved in hoarding are usually left up to the individual states to decide.

EO 11051 authorizes FEMA near total authoritarian power in periods of crisis. There has been a lots of debate concerning this excessive domination FEMA has been granted. FEMA was created by President Carter under Executive Order 12148, and during times of activation FEMA answers only to the National Security Council, which in turn answers directly to the President. Once these powers are invoked not even Congress can countermand them for six months. So who will establish how much food we may store within our home - FEMA of course. Keep in mind also that the amount depends on the needs of all not our individual requirements.