[asperous]

One of the biggest criticisms of democracy is that it would be too slow of a process, when, for example someone runs a plain into a business building and kills lots of people.

So the founders of America created something called setting the country into a "state of emergency" which grants certain rights and privileges not normally legal. They didn't think that the government would be so power hungry that they'd just leave this feature permanently on.

They were wrong.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/11/messag...

[mpyne]

The founders of America did no such thing. You should go read the Constitution yourself to verify, but I only know of the state of insurrection/rebellion or domestic attack as being mentioned explicitly by the Framers, and that was only in the context of suspension of habeus corpus.

If you look at the link you posted you'll see that the verbiage about "national emergency" was designed and implemented by Congress as law, not as part of the Constitution itself.

[saraid216]

> which grants certain rights and privileges not normally legal

Please enumerate the actual rights and privileges not normally legal.