In the “shadow government” of most imaginations, the bunkers are dark, computers are silent, and stockpiled snacks sit fresh in their vac-pacs. Deep in the underground hum of filtered air, everything is ready. Flick a switch, add some bodies, and government’s back, ready to run post-apocalyptic America. But in the latest news, we learn, the bunkers are already staffed, consoles are lit, the backup plan is up and running.
America’s shadow government, six months old and with no expiration date in sight, is troubling news to conspiracy theorists and government experts. “Credible threats,” loose nukes and the like, have the White House spooked enough to sequester bureaucrats in bunkers. But the back-up government consists of only one branch, the Executive. Why? … only the shadow knows.
Guests:
Barton Gellman, Washington Post reporter
Paul Light, Vice President & Director of Governmental Studies, The Brookings Institution
Steve Dycus, Professor of National Security Law, Vermont Law School
Matthew Bunn, Assistant Director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.