Fwd: FC: Emergency Powers and National Emergencies

[Declan McCullagh]

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>Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 23:56:10 -0500
>To: politech at vorlon.mit.edu
>From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
>Subject: FC: Emergency Powers and National Emergencies
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>"The President has the power to seize property, organize and control the
>means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, call
>reserve forces amounting to 2 1/2 million men to duty, institute martial
>law, seize and control all menas of transportation, regulate all private
>enterprise, restrict travel, and in a plethora of particular ways, control
>the lives of all Americans...
>
>"Most [of these laws] remain a a potential source of virtually unlimited
>power for a President should he choose to activate them. It is possible
>that some future President could exercise this vast authority in an attempt
>to place the United States under authoritarian rule.
>
>"While the danger of a dictatorship arising through legal means may seem
>remote to us today, recent history records Hitler seizing control through
>the use of the emergency powers provisions contained in the laws of the
>Weimar Republic."
>
>   --Joint Statement, Sens. Frank Church (D-ID) and Charles McMathias (R-MD)
>     September 30, 1973
>
>
>I came across this and the Senate special committee's 1973 report on
>Emergency Powers Statutes in Time Magazine's library. Powerful stuff.
>
>-Declan
>
>
>
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