Another remarkably bad, and unconstitutional, idea from the White House

My Way News:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic."

If anyone is aware of a Constitutional mandate for this, I'd like to hear it. Of course, the way things are going, people may be so spooked by the "millions will die" propaganda coming from the government that any quarantine will probably be too late with traffic jams caused by panicky motorists fleeing the outbreak proving more effective in restraining travel than the military.

Think about this scenario. HSN1 or some other superbug arrives from Asia. It probably comes in via an airplane where the recirculating air has already spread it to dozens of other people. Passengers on the flight have different destination cities which they reach by further air travel, rail, bus, taxi, etc. During all this time they are either asymptomatic or haven't yet figured out that what they have isn't a routine illness. By the time a cluster of cases is confirmed in one city and the military ordered to surround it, there will likely be other clusters in other cities, probably dozens of others, being reported in short order. By the tiime the epidemiologists can track back to case zero, the infection will be all over the place and contact tracing will be all but impossible and useless.

If that infected flight arrives at Los Angeles and infected passengers continue on to San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and St. Louis - how many troops will it take to seal off those ten cities? What happens to transport of food and fuel?

For those who suspect this might work, rent a copy of Stephen King's miniseries The Stand and watch the first 30 or 45 minutes which deal with the escape and spread of the infection that wipes out most of North America. Then, if you like movies, you'll be hooked and watch the whole thing.