How bad can it get?

That’s the question I've been wrestling with for a while here, given the Bush administration's utter disdain for the rule of law.

And I'm wrestling even more with it now, having just read an article by investigative reporter Tim Shorrock over at salon.com.

In it, he talks about something called "the Main Core," a top-secret database that the government uses for domestic surveillance.

I'd never heard of the thing before.

But Shorrock says it "contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies."

One former intelligence officer told him that it was “designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution, or the imposition of martial law.”

There it is again, that haunting, hovering phrase, "martial law."

I've been told by members of InfraGard, an FBI-private sector group consisting of 26,000 businesspeople, that they've been told to plan for "martial law."

And Bush's National Security Directive 51 seems to pave the way for that, as well.

Let's remember that General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq, and Wayne Downing, who was Condoleezza's counterintelligence czar at the National Security Council, both warned about "martial law."

Is it too much to ask for Congress to hold a hearing on whatever plans there may be afoot for martial law?

The time for that inquiry is now, before it’s too late.