Tag: emergency powers

When Everything Becomes a National Security Threat

“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.” ~ Justice Hugo Black, New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)

“National security” has become the government’s all-purpose permission slip to behave badly.

They have become the magic words that can make constitutional restraints disappear – especially when the courts defer to claims of national security. Courts have historically been reluctant to second-guess the executive branch when government officials invoke military necessity, classified information, foreign affairs or national security.

Given the judiciary’s longstanding reluctance to second-guess presidential power grabs involving national security, the national-security state has repeatedly used that deference to expand both its own reach and the power of the presidency.

Call something a matter of national security and the normal rules start disappearing: Courts defer. Congress retreats. Secrecy expands. Executive power grows.

“National security” has been used as the justification for surveillance, secret courts, classification, warrantless spying, military intervention, watchlists, detention, border searches, censorship claims and the concealment of government misconduct.

That game is hardly new.

Nixon played it. Bush played it. Obama played it. Biden played it.

Trump may not have invented the national-security dodge, but he has taken it to increasingly absurd extremes.

Under Trump 2.0, almost everything gets branded a matter of national security in order for the president to sidestep as many parts of the Constitution as he finds inconvenient.

At one point, the government even invoked national security to justify proposed tariffs on trumpets, trombones and tubas because the instruments depend on foreign copper alloys.

This would almost be laughable if the consequences were not so serious.

Trump wants greater control over the U.S economy? Declare a national emergency and seize the power to levy tariffs in the name of national security.

Trump is disgruntled over relations with Canada? Declare a national security threat and claim executive authority to levy tariffs without going through Congress.

Trump wants to build a lavish ballroom? Stick a bunker below it and a droneport on top, and call it national security.

Trump wants to erect a massive ceremonial arch? Turn it into a military installation, complete with drones, snipers and ammunition, and chalk it up to national security.

Trump doesn’t like unfavorable press coverage? Ban reporters from the White House and characterize the press as a national-security threat.

This is not merely another Trump deflection.

It is the logical culmination of decades spent allowing presidents of both parties to invoke national security whenever they want more power, more secrecy and less accountability.

Trump is demonstrating just how much damage can be done once a president decides that virtually anything he wants can be recast as necessary for national security.

Consider how far down the road we have already traveled under the Trump administration.

Tariffs on allies have been justified as national security. Annexing Greenland has been characterized as vital to national security. Offshore wind projects have been halted on national-security grounds.

Coal plants have been kept operating longer in the name of national security.

Artificial-intelligence infrastructure and massive data centers have been elevated to matters of national security.

Even federal workers’ collective-bargaining protections have been stripped away after agencies were classified as performing national-security work.

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COVID Response: Do We Really Want To Go Back To That?

COVID changed the way I hear the word “temporary.”

Before 2020, ‘temporary’ was temporary. Something happened, you dealt with it, and eventually you went back to living your life.

Then came COVID.

Most of us remember the rest. The empty streets. The closed businesses. The masks. The six-foot circles on the floor. Schools closed, churches restricted, nursing homes became nearly impossible to visit, and governments suddenly had an extraordinary amount to say about what ordinary Americans could and could not do.

I don’t need to make a list of everything that happened. You lived through it.

So did I.

What interests me now isn’t relitigating every lockdown decision or deciding which governor got which decision right. It is what the whole experience taught us about government power.

We learned that “temporary” can become a remarkably elastic word.

We also learned how quickly people will surrender ordinary freedoms when the circumstances are frightening enough.

I understood the fear. I had elderly people in my family, and I wanted to protect them. That’s why I eventually took the COVID shot.

I don’t regret doing it for them.

But I remember watching government move from telling us to be careful to telling us what we could do. At one point, OSHA tried to impose a vaccine-or-test requirement on businesses with 100 or more employees, covering roughly 84 million workers. The Supreme Court stopped it.

That was the moment the issue became especially clear to me.

This wasn’t simply about where I could go anymore. Government was reaching into the relationship between an employee and an employer.

That’s a lot of power.

And once you’ve seen government exercise that kind of power, you don’t forget it.

The consequences weren’t confined to the moment, either. Children lost months of schooling. Businesses that had taken years to build disappeared. Families missed funerals and time with dying relatives. Some of those losses can’t be measured by a statistic because there isn’t a statistic for a grandmother who couldn’t hug her grandchild.

NWEA’s 2023-24 analysis found that students still needed the equivalent of 4.8 additional months of schooling in reading and 4.3 months in math to reach pre-COVID achievement levels.

Those are the numbers.

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Trump Admin Weighs Emergency Powers To Boost Refining As Diesel Tops $6

With national average diesel prices above $6 a gallon and regular gasoline firmly above $4.20, the Trump administration faces mounting pressure to deploy every available policy tool to contain fuel costs ahead of the midterm elections. Disruptions tied to the Russia-Ukraine war and turmoil in the Gulf are intensifying the global refining super squeeze.

Reuters reports late Friday afternoon that the Trump administration is considering whether to use the Defense Production Act to expand U.S. oil refining capacity as the Iran conflict drives up fuel prices.

According to the report:

The proposal to use the act came up during a recent meeting between President Donald Trump and nearly a dozen U.S. refiners, where White House officials sought to determine how federal support could best be used to add capacity, the sources said. No final decisions were made, and participants left the meeting with the expectation that the conversations would continue, according to the sources.

However, expanding refining capacity comes as U.S. refineries are already operating near their limits. The latest data shows that utilization has topped 98%. 

The discussions follow Trump’s April decision authorizing support for domestic petroleum production, refining and logistics under the Defense Production Act. That directive identified financing constraints, long construction timelines, permitting delays and supply-chain limitations as obstacles to expanding capacity.

“America’s refining capacity is essential to ensuring the United States has continuous access to secure, affordable, and reliable energy. Expanding that capacity is a top priority for the President and his energy team, who are evaluating concrete options to increase our refining capacity through regulatory reform, faster permitting, and additional investment,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, told the outlet.

Reuters pointed out: 

A proposed new refinery in Brownsville, Texas, has emerged as a test case for Trump’s call to expand U.S. refining capacity. It was unclear whether the project would receive any Defense Production Act funding. 

America First Refining plans to build a 168,000-barrel-per-day facility at the Port of Brownsville, which Trump announced in March as the first new U.S. refinery in nearly 50 years. ⁠The project is backed by India’s Reliance Industries, which has agreed to a 20-year deal to buy the refinery’s output.

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Trump Declares National Emergency Over Chinese Equipment Inside America’s AI Data Centers

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Wednesday over Chinese-made equipment in the core of America’s AI data centers. The numbers behind his declaration are stunning.

In a move that threatens to rip apart the global supply chain for data center hardware, President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency in order to block the importation of Chinese equipment buried deep inside America’s AI infrastructure. The new executive order signed by Trump last week gives the Department of Energy the authority to block or to impose conditions on transactions involving foreign-made equipment in the bulk-power system as well as in data center construction.

China’s share of other subcategories of transformers and switchgear, used to power the facility, ranges around 30 percent, according to Yury Dvorkin, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. For batteries specifically imported for data centers, the Chinese share is over 40 percent. And then there are the raw materials that Chinese suppliers control at the upstream stages of production — copper, electrical steel, and battery cathode materials, to name a few.

But it’s not just the substation transformers that the AI infrastructure buildout is increasingly dependent on Chinese imports for, according to Ben Boucher, senior supply chain analyst at Wood Mackenzie. He highlights a few key areas of supply chain exposure that the AI buildout of data centers is dependent on. “And if you can’t bring those in, you can’t build out the AI infrastructure of the data centers,” he said.

China has a near two-thirds share of global optical transceiver units in revenue terms, led by the market of two major domestic firms, Zhongji Innolight and Eoptolink, which together account for over 50 percent of data center optical transceiver markets — other Chinese companies taking up the remainder.

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Trump Broadens Interior’s Role In National Energy Emergencies

President Donald Trump expanded the number of Cabinet officials who can independently exercise emergency powers involving the nation’s energy supplies for the second time in six months.

An executive order issued Sept. 8 gives the interior secretary authority under the Defense Production Act that had previously rested largely with the energy secretary. Trump added the energy secretary alongside the commerce secretary under a similar provision in March.

Before March, the commerce secretary held authority under one provision intended to maximize energy supplies. Trump’s action Tuesday leaves the three officials independently authorized to act on energy-related matters under the Defense Production Act.

The Defense Production Act, created five years after the end of World War II, allows the president to tell private companies to give federal contracts priority over private-sector customers. It also allows the president to provide financial incentives to increase the supply of materials and technologies considered vital to national defense. Congress has reauthorized the law more than 50 times since its enactment in 1950.

The Interior Department oversees federal lands and waters containing significant energy and mineral resources. Its agencies administer onshore oil and gas leasing and production, while the interior secretary approves the five-year schedule for offshore oil and gas lease sales. The department’s energy portfolio also includes coal, critical minerals, geothermal energy, and wind and solar development on public lands.

The new order gives the interior and energy secretaries independent authority to require that certain energy-related contracts receive priority and to allocate energy resources when necessary to support national defense.

The order also establishes a process for resolving disagreements between the two departments. Energy-related disputes between the interior and energy secretaries will be referred to the National Energy Dominance Council. Disputes involving national defense infrastructure or military operations will be referred to the National Energy Dominance Council and the National Security Council while coordinating with the Department of War.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former North Dakota governor, also chairs the White House National Energy Dominance Council. In March, Burgum went to Venezuela to meet with leader Delcy Rodriguez to discuss investments and expansion of the country’s natural resources.

Nearly six months later, Trump announced a deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels from Venezuela’s oil reserves. Trump said the deal was a partnership of private businesses and was brokered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth while working with Rodriguez.

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America After 9/11: 25 Years of Fear, War, Surveillance, and Permanent Emergency

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in  –  and the West in general  –  into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” – Osama bin Laden (October 2001)

“GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.” – President Donald Trump (September 2026)

Days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, President Trump flooded his Truth Social account with AI-generated fantasies of himself commanding armies of giant, red-eyed robots.

In one, Trump strides through a darkened Washington surrounded by robotic soldiers beneath the words, “THEY WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.” Another declares, “THEY WILL DREAM OF US FOREVER.” A third depicts Trump seated on a mechanical throne, surrounded by an army of robots and the presidential seal, beneath the warning: “GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.”

Twenty-five years after 9/11, one has to ask: has the nightmare ever really ended?

For a quarter-century, Americans have been governed by fear: fear of terrorists and foreign enemies, fear of domestic extremists and political opponents, fear of the next attack, the next crisis, the next emergency.

That fear has given us endless war, mass surveillance, militarized police, secret courts, indefinite detention, government watchlists, domestic military deployments and an imperial presidency armed with powers that would have been unthinkable before 9/11.

Now the man entrusted with the imperial powers of the modern-day presidency is publicly imagining himself enthroned over robotic armies, raining destruction on his enemies and promising nightmares.

The imagery may be unhinged from reality, but the powers of the presidency are not.

Neither are the questions raised by Trump’s increasingly unhinged public behavior about whether any president – especially one armed with the accumulated powers of the post-9/11 national-security state – is mentally and temperamentally fit to wield them.

That is where America’s two great anniversaries of 2026 collide.

On July 4, America celebrated 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, born from a revolt against King George III and a system in which too much power rested in the hands of one ruler. At its heart was the radical proposition that government derives its just powers from the consent of the people.

On September 11, we mark 25 years since the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, shattered the nation’s sense of security, and set in motion a massive expansion of presidential, military and national-security power.

America began by rebelling against a king.

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Trump Declares National Emergency to Secure U.S. Power Grid From Foreign Cyber Security Threats

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Aug. 26 to secure the national power grid, citing unusual and extraordinary foreign cyber and security threats.

The order prohibits certain foreign-made bulk-power system electric equipment, including software, that poses cybersecurity or operational risks, from being purchased or installed in the United States.

“Certain foreign actors are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, and economy,” Trump said in the order.

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Trump teases national security emergency for elections: ‘Stranger things have happened’

President Donald Trump is leaving the door open to declaring a national security emergency over the 2026 midterm elections, stating Monday that “stranger things have happened.” 

Conservative commentator and Real America’s Voice host Wayne Allyn Root made the suggestion in an interview, noting that it could be done if the Senate fails to pass the SAVE America Act when it returns from its recess next month.

The host commented that if the president does declare a national security emergency and federalize the elections, then he would get everything he wanted without needing the Senate’s assistance.

“Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that,” Trump told the host abruptly. 

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act is a nationwide voter ID bill that has strong support from the Trump-aligned conservative voter base. It requires people to present proof of citizenship to register to vote and requires Americans to show ID when voting.

If the president does try to declare a national security emergency and take over the midterms, he could still be blocked by Congress through a joint resolution, according to The Hill. That joint resolution would likely require veto-proof two-thirds majorities in both chambers, according to the outlet.

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ICAN Obtains Records Showing Large Numbers of Pertussis and Measles Cases Among the Vaccinated

While the unvaccinated get blamed, through legal demand, ICAN has obtained documentation showing that in 2025 a large number of the cases of pertussis in West Virginia and measles in New York state were among the vaccinated!

In 2025, news headlines covered outbreaks of pertussis in West Virgina and measles in New York. Health authorities used these outbreaks as an excuse to crush individual and civil rights, coerce vaccination, and refuse medical exemptions by claiming the unvaccinated were falling ill.

ICAN decided to dig into how many were, in fact, unvaccinated. We recently received responses from West Virginia and New York and, for those following ICAN for a while, the results will not be surprising:

According to the chart below provided by WV’s department of health, 71% of the West Virginia cases in 2025 were in individuals who were up to date on their vaccines—and looking back on all cases over the past 7 years, 68% of cases were in individuals who were up to date.

This is not surprising given that the pertussis vaccine does not stop infection or transmission; in many situations, fully vaccinated people assume they are “protected,” get infected and may have fewer symptoms, and then proceed to transmit pertussis to others.

Similarly, in the measles outbreak in New York, 33% of individuals with measles had received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine and 28% purportedly had an “unknown vaccination status.”

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From Healing to Harm

Medicine is fundamentally oriented toward healing. Physicians have cured diseases, alleviated pain, extended life expectancy, and expanded collective self-understanding beyond what was conceivable a century ago. Few professions have contributed more to human well-being. However, medicine also confers significant power. Physicians influence individual behavior, shape public policy, direct scientific research, and, particularly during crises, wield considerable authority within society. This power can be beneficial, yet it also risks transforming confidence into unwarranted certainty and rendering authority resistant to challenge.

Power itself is not inherently dangerous; the greater risk lies in excessive certainty.

The most significant ethical failures in medicine rarely stem from malicious intent. More commonly, they arise from overconfidence, hasty decision-making, and the belief that challenging circumstances necessitate drastic measures. The transition from beneficence to harm is seldom abrupt; it typically unfolds gradually, propelled by good intentions and increasing confidence in one’s own judgment. Numerous troubling episodes in medical history were initiated by individuals who sincerely believed they were acting appropriately.

The authority of medicine is grounded in general trust. Patients disclose their most profound concerns to physicians, trusting that truth, compassion, and respect will be prioritized. Society grants physicians special privileges, with the expectation that their expertise will be exercised judiciously and with humility. Perfection is not expected; rather, honesty, acknowledgment of uncertainty, and a commitment to continual reassessment are essential. These responsibilities are foundational to contemporary medical ethics and research regulations.¹⁻⁵ Yet, uncertainty is uncomfortable.

Uncertainty is broadly uncomfortable for patients, governments, the public, and physicians alike. During crises, this discomfort intensifies. Emergencies such as pandemics or wars generate a collective demand for definitive answers, even in the absence of sufficient information. Leaders may feel compelled to project confidence, while experts experience pressure to alleviate public anxiety. The inherent uncertainty of scientific inquiry can, under these conditions, become particularly difficult to tolerate.

In these situations, medicine faces a big risk: mistaking confidence for real knowledge.

Scientific progress is driven not by consensus, but by the continual questioning of established ideas, the challenging of prevailing norms, and the willingness to adapt in response to new evidence. Experienced physicians have witnessed the abandonment of once-celebrated treatments. Medical paradigms have shifted repeatedly; interventions once embraced have been discarded, and regulations once considered immutable have been revised. These changes do not signify failure; rather, they demonstrate the ongoing vitality of scientific inquiry.⁶⁻⁸

Science moves forward because of doubt, not because everyone agrees.

Throughout medical history, episodes abound in which certainty yielded to humility. Bloodletting persisted for centuries under the mistaken belief that its rationale was sound. Frontal lobotomy, initially regarded as a breakthrough and recognized with a Nobel Prize, was later discredited due to its harmful consequences. Hormone therapy for postmenopausal women was widely adopted until large-scale studies raised concerns about its safety and efficacy. Certain antiarrhythmic drugs, intended to prevent sudden cardiac death, were subsequently found to increase risk in some populations. Numerous critical care practices once deemed reasonable have since been revised or abandoned.

These stories do not mean science is incompetent. Instead, they remind us to stay humble. They show that our knowledge can change, and we should remember that we might not see the whole picture. Being willing to question ourselves is not a weakness in medicine; it is one of its greatest strengths.⁶⁻⁸

When physicians become convinced of their infallibility, significant risks emerge. Excessive certainty can gradually suppress intellectual curiosity, diminish openness to alternative perspectives, and reduce receptivity to novel ideas. Over time, leaders may disregard criticism, transforming constructive debate into perceived disloyalty and rendering uncertainty a subject to be concealed rather than discussed.

Crises make ethical challenges even more complicated. Emergencies change what we see as right and wrong. Things that once seemed extreme can suddenly feel necessary. Societies accept restrictions and actions that would have been unthinkable just months before. Sometimes these changes are justified because emergencies do require action. The real ethical question is not whether we should adapt in a crisis—we must. The question is where adaptation ends, and ethical erosion begins.¹,²,⁴,⁹

Historical evidence indicates that emergencies frequently concentrate power among a limited group and reduce opportunities for dissent. In times of crisis, themes of urgency, unity, and rapid action dominate discourse. While these responses are understandable, they can oversimplify complex issues, obscure uncertainty, and marginalize alternative viewpoints. Paradoxically, periods that most require wisdom and humility may instead foster overconfidence and increased centralization of authority.

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