FOLLOW US

Some believe that there are no time limits to it and no real definition of the reason or reasons for which it can be called.

That leads to the conspiracy theory and nightmare scenario where if the president were to call for it and the military was to go along with it, not a given, it would be seen by some as tantamount to a military coup.

Those conspiracy theorists believe that, if taken to the extreme, it could relegate the United States into a dictatorship where the president never cedes control and even passes the presidency to one of his children.

This is nonsense as there are some limits on it. The Brennan Center for Justice, however, “their actions under the declaration must abide by the U.S. Constitution and are subject to review in federal court.”

“Notorious examples include Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of U.S. citizens and residents of Japanese descent during World War II and George W. Bush’s programs of warrantless wiretapping and torture after the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the Atlantic said. “Abraham Lincoln conceded that his unilateral suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War was constitutionally questionable, but defended it as necessary to preserve the Union.”

The Posse Comitatus Act passed on June 18, 1878, prevents the military from engaging in civil law enforcement, but the exception came with The Insurrection Act.

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect,” it says.

Here is how the president could declare it. You may have noticed in the news recently that protests for and against President Trump have turned into fights bordering on riots.

A 2006 Congressional Research Service report the president “must first issue a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse within a limited time, 10 U.S.C. § 334.4. If the situation does not resolve itself, the President may issue an executive order to send in troops.”

But that is not martial law. The thing about martial law is there are no guidelines to when the president or military can declare it, they just can.