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-- declare martial law;
-- seize and control all transportation, communications, and commerce;
-- restrict travel, and
-- in most ways control the lives of US citizens, including arresting and detaining them.
Some analysts say the Constitution only delegates Congress emergency powers under Article I, section 8, granting it authority to "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare....regulate Commerce....declare War, (organize and arm a) Militia," as well as the "necessary and proper" clause empowering it to enact laws required to exercise these powers, and all others.
Yet presidents have assumed them on their own despite legislative constraints, most recently post-9/11 through Executive Orders, National Security Presidential Directives, and other means, including George Bush claiming "Unitary Executive" powers, what Chalmers Johnson called a "ball-faced assertion of presidential supremacy dressed up in legal mumbo jumbo," but getting away with it because Congress and the courts didn't constrain him.
What then is an emergency? In simplest terms, whatever the president says it is, having broad latitude to take advantage without implemented checks and balances countermanding him. Merriam-Webster calls it "an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action."
During 1973 congressional hearings, the following description was offered:
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