It has been declared 68 times either locally or federally in the United States but the law is murky on the reasons needed for the president to declare it and what it would mean if he did.
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.”
