IP: The Martial Plan by Declan McCullagh/Washington

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

Think the Year 2000 problem means mere elevator snafus? Try dealing with a platoon of Marines who show up in your front yard to confiscate your hoarded lentils. Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) asked the deputy secretary of defense at a hearing this morning what plans the Pentagon has "in the event of a Y2K-induced breakdown of community services that might call for martial law." John Hamre replied carefully, but none too reassuringly, "We've got fundamental issues to deal with that go beyond just the Year 2000 contingency planning. And I think you're right to bring that up." Another distressing point that came up at the Senate Armed Services committee hearing was the fact that the military directs one quarter of U.S. air traffic. "You may be flying across the country and an air traffic controller may be a military guy in certain areas as opposed to it being an FAA person," Hamre said. Although the FAA's head Y2K guru assured us this afternoon that the agency will have its Y2K fix!
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es complete by October 1998, the military appears to be in much worse shape. And other countries? "We can be sure that there will be social unrest in many parts of the world as a result of Y2K," Bennett said. For the record, though, Bennett did say, "I am not one of those who says that Y2K will automatically produce martial law," and blamed "alarmists, extremists out there on the Internet" for unnecessary scaremongering. --By Declan McCullagh/Washington