Is the Posse Comitatus Act being eroded?

Bush did not define the wider role he envisions for the military. But in his speech to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday, he alluded to the unmatched ability of federal troops to provide supplies, equipment, communications, transportation and other assets the military lumps under the label of "logistics."

that is one of the things we do best.

However..... most military troops are not trained for law enforcment.

I as a retired military person find troubling any mention of Rumsfeld talking about new realtionships between state and federal authorities.

LTG Honore is commanding Federal troops and that is the way it should be.

Keep Rumsfeld very far away from any decisionmaking on this. He likes to get his little meat hooks into everything.
 
For future reference once the link expires, and for the edification of our readers:
Military May Play Bigger Relief Role
Sep 17 2:59 PM US/Eastern

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON

President Bush's push to give the military a bigger role in responding to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina could lead to a loosening of legal limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil.

Pentagon officials are reviewing that possibility, and some in Congress agree it needs to be considered.

Bush did not define the wider role he envisions for the military. But in his speech to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday, he alluded to the unmatched ability of federal troops to provide supplies, equipment, communications, transportation and other assets the military lumps under the label of "logistics."

The president called the military "the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice."

At question, however, is how far to push the military role, which by law may not include actions that can be defined as law enforcement _ stopping traffic, searching people, seizing property or making arrests. That prohibition is spelled out in the Posse Comitatus Act of enacted after the Civil War mainly to prevent federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states.

Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said, "I believe the time has come that we reflect on the Posse Comitatus Act." He advocated giving the president and the secretary of defense "correct standby authorities" to manage disasters.

Presidents have long been reluctant to deploy U.S. troops domestically, leery of the image of federal troops patrolling in their own country or of embarrassing state and local officials.

The active-duty elements that Bush did send to Louisiana and Mississippi included some Army and Marine Corps helicopters and their crews, plus Navy ships. The main federal ground forces, led by troops of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., arrived late Saturday, five days after Katrina struck.

They helped with evacuations and performed search-and-rescue missions in flooded portions of New Orleans but did not join in law enforcement operations.

The federal troops were led by Lt. Gen. Russel Honore. The governors commanded their National Guard soldiers, sent from dozens of states.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is reviewing a wide range of possible changes in the way the military could be used in domestic emergencies, spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday. He said these included possible changes in the relationship between federal and state military authorities.

Under the existing relationship, a state's governor is chiefly responsible for disaster preparedness and response.

Governors can request assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If federal armed forces are brought in to help, they do so in support of FEMA, through the U.S. Northern Command, which was established in 2002 as part of a military reorganization after the 9/11 attacks.

Di Rita said Rumsfeld has not made recommendations to Bush, but among the issues he is examining is the viability of the Posse Comitatus Act. Di Rita called it one of the "very archaic laws" from a different era in U.S. history that limits the Pentagon's flexibility in responding to 21st century domestic crises.

Another such law, Di Rita said, is the Civil War-era Insurrection Act, which Bush could have invoked to waive the law enforcement restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act. That would have enabled him to use either National Guard soldiers or active-duty troops _ or both _ to quell the looting and other lawlessness that broke out in New Orleans.

The Insurrection Act lets the president call troops into federal action inside the United States whenever "unlawful obstructions, combinations or assemblages _ or rebellion against the authority of the United States _ make it impracticable to enforce the laws" in any state.

The political problem in Katrina was that Bush would have had to impose federal command over the wishes of two governors _ Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi _ who made it clear they wanted to retain state control.

The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was in 1992 when it was requested by California Gov. Pete Wilson after the outbreak of race riots in Los Angeles. President George H.W. Bush dispatched about 4,000 soldiers and Marines.

Di Rita cautioned against expecting quick answers to tough questions like whether Congress should define when to trigger the president's authority to send federal troops to take charge of an emergency, regardless of whether a governor agreed.

"Is there a way to define a threshold, or an anticipated threshold, above which a different set of relationships would kick in?" Di Rita asked. "That's a good question. It's only been two weeks, so don't expect us to have the answers. But those are the kinds of questions we need to be asking."

This is one of the most worrisome quotes in the article: "Di Rita called it one of the "very archaic laws" from a different era in U.S. history..." Sounds like the antis spouting off against the Second Amendment. Abandonment of the Posse Comitatus Act is a very dangerous step on an increasingly slippery slope.
 
You may think I am overly cynical, but when I see TV footage from New Orleans, and I can't even tell a cop apart from an 82nd Airborne trooper at first glance, then maybe Posse Comitatus is pointless anyway.
 
There is an entire branch of federal service trained in LE. My former service, the United States Coast Guard.

Beyond that, I agree with the staff member who mentioned that he couldn't tell the cops from the soldiers. That line has become awfully blurry in recent years.
 
The supreme irony of all this is that the conservatives have given the police all the tools for the job, both legally and logistically, in order to go and fight the "War On Some Drugs". I've warned people for years that they'll be in for a big surprise when the drug-sniffing dogs turn into gun-sniffing dogs, and the door-kicking is done to look for guns instead of evil intoxicating plant products.
 
Sendec,

By what is commonly known as "paramilitary" units within the police departments.

Like SWAT mainly.

SWAT teams are trained using military type weapons and entry training. They are also trained in the art of sniping as well as building (house) clearing. The exact same training and weapons that our military uses.

Then they either go with the entire black attire theme or the camo's. They use the same type of weaponary, the same type of APV's / Tank like vehicles, the same type of helicoptors (in the areas that can afford them), and the same tactics that our military is trained when house/city clearing (look at Iraq, look at NO).

The only difference that I can see is that the military is trained to kill the enemy, the LEO paramilitary troops are trained against citizens of the United States.

It's really a love / hate relationsip. We do need people like those in SWAT to be able to take out the hard corp criminals. To be able to put down a threat before it gets too out of hand.

Yet, we don't need them to do what they are doing in NO, disarming regular civilians so that they are left to be prey to those that will not be disarmed and will continue their criminal ways. There is a very fine line between dealing justice, and trampling it. Way too many decide in times of chaos and disspair to tramble it for their sakes instead of trying to sort the good from the bad and then crushing the bad for the good.

The main reason that the military is banned from interacting in the US is because the military is trained to remove the enemy by any means, force, necessary, to fire and kill, and then to move on to the next objective. Even with my cushie job in the AF, my primary job was to kill and they taught me how to do so. They even taught the mindset where if they ordered you to pull the trigger, that you got over it and moved on and did your job as dictated at the time.

In the AF and quite possibly the Navy, most ground troops were far from the action and just ensured that the aircraft and the ships were primed for killing others, so you did contribute to the death of those caught within the bomb blast or the missle, the shell. When a plane came back without arms and you knew it went out with arms, you knew that the arms were used, that people died, yet you couldn't let that affect your decision to reload the aircraft, or put another shell into those guns.

This creates a disconnect on your feelings or emotions which while applied to the enemy is good, helps you do your job, but when applied to your fellow Americans, creates turmoil and regret. Could also create total disregard for your fellow Americans which creates people like McVey and others like him.

This total disregard for your fellow Americans is not an option, and one that shouldn't even be bred or learned by those that we trust for help when needed.

There was a time where people looked upon those that serve in a civil sense with awe, wide eyed, and with respect. I wish for those times to be regained and once again to look upon the civil servant with a sense of awe.

Wayne

/sorry, just into one of my moods today. Thinking of life, the justice and injustice of it all, and the gladness that even with all the ills of the world, I am alive and gratful for it and maybe will do or say something that will help to destroy some of these ills.
 
I was refering mostly to the growing lack of difference in appearance from soldiers to police officers, however there is more to it than that. Increasingly, our military is being called on to serve in more of a law enforcement capacity than it has in the past.

Although this is not a new thing for the Coast Guard (my last assignment involved training Navy boarding crews to think like cops) the rest of the military has to adjust.

Meanwhile, the police are using more "military" tactics than before.
 
When you adopt military dress (camo BDUs), military weaponry (M-4 carbines), military hardware (armored personnel carriers), military vocabulary, military designation of non-uniformed citizens ("civilians"), and you describe your main vocational activities as a "war" (War on Drugs, War on Terrorism, etcetera), you can't (or oughtn't) be too awfully surprised, shocked, or offended when people perceive you as a soldier, and not a peace officer.
 
You do realize that the military went to the police when they needed to learn how to clear houses, use less than lethal force, handle crowds and the like? Metro Dade SWAT and LASO SEB have a long history of training military units. You've got it backwards.

You do realize that the SWAT concept was originated to deal with domestic terrorist incidents in which the military had and has no jurisdiction? You do realize that this dates to the early 1970's and is nothing new?

You do realize that there is almost no commonality in military strategic and tactical doctrine and those in law enforcement, and that it would appear that your main concern is physical appearance?

What makes an M4 a military weapon? So civilians dont really have any use for them then? Is that what you are saying? So using an armored vehicle at the North Hollywood shootout to rescue downed people or in New Orleans tp protect responders is the provence of the military?

How many people on this forum own BDUs? Why?

I can see where this is going..... :rolleyes:

,,,,,, and I can think of plent worse things to be perceived as than a US soldier :mad:
 
If you find nothing wrong with being perceived as a soldier rather than a peace officer, why are you so defensive? Note that nothing in my post made any value judgments.

What makes an M4 a military weapon?

The fact that police and military have them, but that you would arrest me for finding one in my possession.
 
The Posse Commitatus Act does NOT bar the military from "operating" in the United States. Not even to use their vehicles, equipment, whatever. It only bans Federal military forces from "actively" engaging in law enforcement activities. They only way this restriction can be lifted is through a new law. However, this was already done in The Civil Disturbance Statutes: 10 U.S.C., sections 331–334.

Section 332: Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State or Territory by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

This is the authority used in Detroit, LA, and now New Orleans.

The National Guard, on the other hand, has no such restriction, being a State "owned and operated" force unless and until it is federalized under Title X.

So, I don't know about "eroded". The legal authority is already there. Depends on how it's implemented.
 
Well the big difference between the 82nd and the Police is that the 82nd is under the command of LTG Honore.......... not the Police Commisioner.
 
And on we go, further and further into a dictatorship, makes no difference if it is W and his fascist buddies or Commie-one worlder= UN lover Kerry and his buddies such as Fineschwein and little Teddy , the world champion swimmer.
Just glad I will, hopefully, not live long enough to see the whole miserable play end in the apparent climax. :barf:
 
The Posse Commitatus Act will not be repealed but the exceptions will expand to empty it of any force. There is a now "drug" exception (remember Waco), a "civil disturbance" exception (remember Detroit), and, I predict before the end of 2006, there will be a "natrual disaster" exception. Between those 3 exceptions, there will no longer exist any enforceable barrier to the use of military troops in our streets.

There is plenty of precedent for this. There were no police forces in America until the 1840's or so. Regulars were regularily used for law enforcement. It is a tradition the British showed us in Boston and New York during the Revolutionary war.
 
The more I sit and take this all in; the more I put the peices together; the more this is shaping up in my mind as not just a slide down a slippery slope, but a full out dive off a cliff......
 
Mike40-11, you seem to be up on your knowledge on this law, and I've not researched the issue.

I have heard that the Posse Comitatus Act (can we just refer to it here as the PCA?) does not apply to Marine provost marshalls (MPs). I haven't verified this. Can you or anyone else confirm, and explain?
 
Johnny,

I am certain that is incorrect information. The Marine Corps (like the Army, Air Force and Navy) is part of the US Armed forces; their statutory foundation is Title Ten US Code (the Armed Forces element of the Code) and the PCA absolutely applies to their activities (this, incidentally, pertains to those services’ reserve components and to the Army and Air Guard, when called to Federal service). The Coast Guard – also an Armed Forces component – has legal standing through both Titles Eight (Federal law enforcement element of the Code) and Ten of the US Code; therefore, the PCA is inapplicable to the USCG when it operates in its law enforcement roles (for example, illegal drug enforcement on the high seas). The uniformed components NOAA and the Public Heath Service are “unformed services” but not “armed forces” under Title Ten.

To summarize, the Marine Corps – including its provost marshal/MP functions – is constrained by the PCA.

Best regards.
 
He's absolutely correct in regards to the Coast Guard. The only branch of the US military with the power to arrest civilians without specific authorization by Congress. However, those powers only apply during the course of law enforcement activities, which is where I see the blurring of the line. Before I joined, LE activities were very different from military action. In the post 9/11 Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, everything is a law enforcement action.
 
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