It’s been more than nine years since September 11, 2001, and the U.S. government continues to operate under the provisions of the National Emergencies Act, which President George W. Bush first implemented three days after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.

 

Bush renewed the state of emergency every year he was in office, and now President Barack Obama has done the same thing during his first two years in the White House.

 

By maintaining a state of national emergency, the Obama administration has legal rationale for continuing to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial.

 

The National Emergencies Act also provides the president with even greater powers. According to Harold Relyea, specialist in American national government with the Congressional Research Service, the president “may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Notice from the President on the Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Certain Terrorist Attacks (White House)

Bush, Obama, and the Nine-year “Emergency” (by Michael Tennant, New American)

National Emergency Powers (Congressional Research Service) (pdf)