Re: emergency powers available to U.S. presidents

From a 2019 article in The Atlantic written by a co-director of a law-and-policy institute affiliated with the NYU School of Law:

The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.

. . . The president could seize control of U.S. internet traffic . . .

[T]he misuse of emergency powers is a standard gambit among leaders attempting to consolidate power. Authoritarians Trump has openly claimed to admire—including the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—have gone this route.

From a 2021 article written by said co-director:

[T]here is one statute that permits presidents, during a national emergency, to take over or shut down radio stations and communications facilities. Another law allows presidents to freeze the assets of anyone, including any American, for the purpose of addressing a foreign threat. Still others allow presidents to control domestic transportation, prohibit major exports—and even suspend the prohibition on government testing of chemical and biological agents on unwitting human subjects.

. . . a second, less-well-known category of emergency powers—those reflected in presidential emergency action documents. These are directives drafted in anticipation of an assortment of worst-case scenarios, ready for the president's signature if any such scenario should come to pass. They originated as part of the Eisenhower administration's planning for a possible Soviet nuclear attack.

By Washington standards, presidential emergency action documents are an extraordinarily well-kept secret. None has ever been released or leaked. From other official documents, however, we know that draft directives in the Cold War's early decades purported to authorize martial law, censorship of the press, warrantless searches of property and the roundup and detention of "subversives." The current content of these documents is unknown, but they presumably reflect the outer limit of whatever powers a given administration claims to possess.

From a February 2, 2022 article written by said co-director:

2022 Update: Reforming Emergency Powers

One year into the Biden administration, Congress isn’t moving fast enough to reform emergency powers.

. . . [T]oday’s dysfunctional Congress has limited capacity to legislate, and emergency powers reform does not appear to have made the short list of top priorities. On this critical issue, Congress isn’t moving fast enough and is leaving too much ground uncovered.

. . . The threat posed by insufficiently checked emergency powers remains acute. The relevant question is not whether the incumbent president is likely to abuse these powers, but whether Congress will take advantage of the current window of opportunity to reform them—before they fall into the wrong hands. That window might not stay open for long.