Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 is stuck in a familiar orbit

    July 30, 2025

    EPA Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office

    July 30, 2025

    The Nvidia RTX 5060 Can’t Quite Beat AMD

    July 30, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » The ‘Emergency Powers’ Risk of a Second Trump Presidency
    Security

    The ‘Emergency Powers’ Risk of a Second Trump Presidency

    News RoomBy News RoomMarch 20, 20243 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    Donald Trump appears to dream of being an American authoritarian should he return to office. The former US president, who on Tuesday secured enough delegates to win the 2024 Republican nomination, plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and house scores of them in large camps. He wants to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military in cities across the nation to quell civil unrest. He wants to prosecute his political opponents. There’s an organized and well-funded effort to replace career civil servants in the federal government with Trump loyalists who will do his bidding and help him consolidate power.

    What’s also concerning to legal experts, though, are the special powers that would be available to him that have been available to all recent presidents but have not typically been used. Should Trump decide to go full authoritarian, he could utilize what are called “emergency powers” to shut down the internet in certain areas, censor the internet, freeze people’s bank accounts, restrict transportation, and more.

    Utilizing laws like the National Emergencies Act, the Communications Act of 1934, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), he would be able to wield power in ways this country has never seen. Furthermore, America’s vast surveillance state, which has regularly been abused, could theoretically be abused even further to surveil his perceived political enemies.

    “There really aren’t emergency powers relating to surveillance, and that’s because the non-emergency powers are so powerful and give such broad authority to the executive branch. They just don’t need emergency powers for that purpose,” says Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program at the New York University School of Law.

    Goitein says she worries most about what a president could do with the emergency powers available to them, though, when she considers whether a president might decide to behave like an authoritarian. She says the laws surrounding these powers offer few opportunities for another branch of government to stop a president from doing as they please.

    “Emergency powers are meant to give presidents extraordinary authorities for use in extraordinary circumstances. Because they provide these very potent authorities, it is critical that they have checks and balances built into them and safeguards against abuse,” Goitein says. “The problem with our current emergency powers system—and that system comprises a lot of different laws—is that it really lacks those checks and balances.”

    Under the National Emergencies Act, for example, the president simply has to declare a national emergency of some kind to activate powers that are contained in more than 130 different provisions of law. What constitutes an actual emergency is not defined by these laws, so Trump could come up with any number of reasons for declaring one, and he couldn’t easily be stopped from abusing this power.

    “There’s a provision of the Communications Act of 1934 that allows the president to shut down or take over communications facilities in a national emergency. There is a provision that allows the president to exert pretty much unspecified controls over domestic transportation, which could be read extremely broadly,” Goitein says. “There’s IEEPA, which allows the president to freeze the assets of and block financial transactions with anyone, including an American, if the president finds it necessary to address an unusual or extraordinary threat that is emanating at least partly from overseas.”

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleHere are all the best tech deals from Amazon’s spring sale
    Next Article LK-99 superconductor physicist accused of “research misconduct”

    Related Posts

    Microsoft Put Older Versions of SharePoint on Life Support. Hackers Are Taking Advantage

    July 29, 2025

    DHS Faces New Pressure Over DNA Taken From Immigrant Children

    July 25, 2025

    At Least 750 US Hospitals Faced Disruptions During Last Year’s CrowdStrike Outage, Study Finds

    July 24, 2025

    China’s Salt Typhoon Hackers Breached the US National Guard for Nearly a Year

    July 23, 2025

    How China’s Patriotic ‘Honkers’ Became the Nation’s Elite Cyberspies

    July 21, 2025

    Hackers Are Finding New Ways to Hide Malware in DNS Records

    July 19, 2025
    Our Picks

    EPA Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office

    July 30, 2025

    The Nvidia RTX 5060 Can’t Quite Beat AMD

    July 30, 2025

    This Star System Contains 5 Potentially Habitable Planets

    July 30, 2025

    Top Verizon Promo Codes and Deals for August 2025

    July 30, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    News

    Opera is filing a complaint over Microsoft’s tricks that push you to use Edge

    By News RoomJuly 29, 2025

    Microsoft has used a variety of tricks to convince people to keep using the defaults…

    YouTube tells creators they can drop more F-bombs

    July 29, 2025

    Lovense was told its sex toy app leaked users’ emails and didn’t fix it

    July 29, 2025

    LG’s StanbyMe 2 is an unquestionably cool TV at a questionably high price

    July 29, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.