From: Chris Fedeli (cafedeli@erols.com)
Date: Wed Sep 15 1999 - 19:47:19 MDT
Anders Sandberg wrote:
> [...]
> Now, the problem: the president and her cabinet may or may not have
> been infiltrated, congress may be more or less infiltrated, as well as
> the supreme court and most of the armed forces (one half of the space
> navy is provably non-infected). Of course, everybody claims to have
> avoided infection. How would the different sides handle this according
> to the constitutuion?
Everything would depend on the status of the president and the
vice-president. If they are both uninfected, the president would be
secure and could direct the military to start testing and confine the
infected members of government until their autonomous faculties could be
restored. If the president and the vice-president are both infected,
the same situation would occur, only now the president would be
directing the removal of the uninfected on the grounds that they were
the infected ones.
[In either case there would still be the possibility of military
infighting or disobedience, but that's outside of the law.]
The most interesting constitutional scenario is when either the
vice-president or the president is infected. Let's say that Gore gets
infected and Clinton remains clean. Gore, now an agent of the
off-planet infiltrators, convenes the cabinet and tells them that
Clinton has been infected and is unable to perform his duties of
office. As long as a majority of cabinet members agree, infected Gore
will assume the powers of president and control of the military.
Clinton would then have declare to the leaders of congress that he has
not been infected and is perfectly able to hold office. Once he does
this he resumes legal control of the government. Now agent-Gore (still
needing the support of a majority of cabinet members) has four days to
tell congress that Clinton remains infected and can not hold office. If
he does so, power automatically reverts to Gore until congress can vote
on the issue.
Congress immediately convenes and has 21 days to decide the question.
By that time, the infiltrators will need to have gotten to two thirds of
the members of both houses of congress - that's the vote it takes to
find Clinton still unfit for office, leaving borg-Gore in power. If
they can't get the two thirds in 21 days, then Clinton again resumes
control.
> Would the non-infected armed forces be allowed to take temporary > leadership?
No, not legally. As foresightful as the founding fathers were, they
failed to put a clause in the constitution authorizing emergency
procedures in case of widespread mind control.
> What could the infected politicians (whoever they are) do to
> interfere?
They could attempt a coup, start an insurrection. But as long as the
president and vice-president remained clean, congress is helpless.
The infected members of congress could vote to remove both Clinton and
Gore on charges of treason, but they would have to do it quickly and
illegally, leaving the door open for the president to refuse to
recognize the vote and begin the purging process.
By its own precedent, the supreme court would have almost no authority
to rule on this kind of emergency political situation.
Chris
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