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Martial Law and Y2KWhat was John Koskinen, a federal potentate, talking about when he said, "[i]n a crisis and emergency situation, the free market may not be the best way to distribute resources?" What bee got stuck in the bonnet of Sen. Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah, when he asked the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense if the military was prepared to implement martial law? And why have the Canadian armed forces gone beyond speculation with Operation Abacus, a plan that will place troops in urban centers and naval vessels in ports around the country? Why, it's all for Y2K, and if these people planned to scare the millennium bug into submission, they may have chosen the right approach. The problem, though, is that this emergency planning follows in well-trod and rather suspect footsteps. But if history is any judge, emergency measures are at least as likely to be the problem as they are to solve any problems, and even if used "properly" they're likely to leave us all with a nasty mess to clean up. The Y2K bug isn't the first crisis of the moment that we've faced, and it's unlikely to be the last. Each situation has produced panicked calls for the government to "do something," and the people in power have been more than happy to oblige. It's an old cliche that "war is the health of the state" and it's probably more accurate to say that politicians thrive on anything that scares the bejeesus out of people. And each response - just for the duration of the emergency, you understand - tends to tighten the political noose around all of our necks just a bit. Robert Higgs, a historian and author of Crisis and Leviathan, uses the term "ratchet" to describe the growth of government power in response to perceived emergencies and its only partial retrenchment afterwards. After the War Between the States ended, Unionists stopped jailing political opponents and closing anti-war newspapers. Likewise, the conclusion of World War I brought an end to the imprisonment of pacifists and the central control of businesses. The passing of the Great Depression saw the resumption of a large measure of economic freedom. And Japanese-Americans were kindly allowed to leave the questionable hospitality of concentration camps upon the surrender of the Axis powers. But Americans were never quite as free at the end of those crises as they had been at the beginning, and the powers-that-be kept pushing back the boundaries of what would be tolerated the next time around. And, of course, people had to endure those supposedly necessary measures for the duration of the "emergency." The Y2K bug shows every sign of being the next crisis. That's not to say that there's a crystal ball that reveals how bad - or not so bad - January 1, 2000 will be. Frankly, nobody knows what's going to happen. But there's enough nasty potential locked up in the Y2K bug to take some precautions. But if lots of people take their money out of the bank ... well, the banks get real unhappy. That's why Sen. Robert Bennett is preaching that the real risk of Y2K is the potential for "panic" - or what the rest of us might call smart planning. That's why Bennett came up with that reassuring question about martial law; he wants the government to be ready to do something if the fear level rises in anticipation of Y2K. Do what? Well, it doesn't have to involve troops and tanks. In the case of bank runs, it's more likely to involve cash controls and bank holidays. FDR closed the banks during the Great Depression so that people couldn't get hold of their own money. And this time, the feds will likely know who's stashing the cash, too, thanks to proposed new financial regulations. "The thing that concerns us most is the potential impact of the newly proposed FDIC "Know Your Customer" legislation, which would keep track of spending patterns," says Ed Yourdon, co-author with his daughter Jennifer of Time Bomb 2000, the book largely responsible for introducing Y2K to the public imagination. "If people start withdrawing cash from their accounts next year, it will be easier for the government to track." The proposed rules are no joke - they essentially require bankers to track their customers' transactions and report anything "unusual" to federal authorities. Stockpiling cash just in case could well be perceived as unusual. Right now, though, the "Know Your Customer" proposal is in a public comment period and drawing an unprecedented negative response, so it may never see the light of day. A tool that the government has already adopted is something called Presidential Decision Directive 63 - yet another executive order from a White House that can't get enough of them. Like the FDIC proposal, PDD 63 never mentions the Y2K bug. It does, however, direct government agencies to develop plans for maintaining "the nation's critical infrastructures." That sounds well and good, as does much of the language of the document, but a widely quoted excerpt from the PDD says "it is preferred that participation by owners and operators in a national infrastructure protection system be voluntary." That's a nice way of saying: Don't get in our way. The due date for these preparations? The year 2000, of course. As a matter of fact, it was infrastructure that John Koskinen, the Y2K czar, had in mind with his comment about the inadequacy of free markets. He was talking about the maintenance of electrical power to a summit organized by President Clinton's Y2K council, and went on to say, "[i]f there's a point in time where we have to take resources and make a judgement on an emergency basis, we will be prepared to do that." Yes, well, we'll all be ready to line up with our electric razors and ration cards. And then there's that very serious talk about martial law. Nothing more formal than Sen. Bennett's eager speculation has come from U.S. authorities, but there's more activity north of the border. Canada's Operation Abacus will cancel all military leaves over the New Year's holiday and position troops to aid police and distribute supplies. Naval ships will be positioned off coastal cities as backup sources of electricity and bases for the soldiers. To put this all into effect, the government is considering invoking the Emergencies Act, which provides for sweeping powers. None of this means anything yet, of course. It's all just planning, and talk, and proposals that may not survive public comment. But all of that hot air and contingency planning will be waiting in the wings for that first whiff of stampede, the first bank run, or a regional brown out on January 1, 2000. It probably won't take much to trigger all of that heavy duty planning for martial law, financial controls, and federal seizure of resources - especially when officials have already decided that panic is on the way. It's possible that we'll all be relieved that emergency measures were taken - although a few aging Japanese-Americans may have something to say about that. But afterwards, if the lessons of history hold, when things go back to more or less "normal" and we've cleaned up the mess and are wondering if it was really necessary to burn Vancouver in order to save it, we're all likely to find that the noose has tightened just a bit more around our necks. Here are the primary sources: Bankers: Prepared for a Panic?Wired 'Martial law' rushed for Y2K chaos - |
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