Martial Law

Just when I was thinking that maybe the recent spate of books and articles about how the U.S. is drifting into totalitarianism is just a bunch of overblown lefty handwringing, I come across this in the New York Times (h/t to BlondeSense):

Making Martial Law Easier

A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.

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[Under this provision,] the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition.”

I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.  Martial law will surely only be declared in a responsible way to protect the homeland.

Comments

[Bruce]

Absolutely; nothing to fear here. There's no need for habeus corpus, checks and balances, all those old pre-nine eleven liberty thingees.
The best laws are written in the dark of the night.
gotta go check the bunker...