Posse Comitatus laws

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Eppie

New member
I am not a lawyer, but there may be some out there. I wonder if someone could educated me about Posse Comitatus.

One of the things that has always irked me is the Posse Comitatus laws prohibiting use of the military on the homeland. I can't think on anything that is more fundamental to national security then border integrity. Yet our armed forces with all their gear are forced to sit on bases and do nothing when they could seal the borders tight as a drum.

In these days of tight budgets the use of the military for border security should be a no brainer, yet no one is talking about it.
 
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You're missing part of Posse Comitatus.

Posse Comitatus means that the Federal Government cannot use the military as a police organization against the citizenry of the United States. (Normally, there's always exceptions)

When the Alabama National Guard was Nationalized and used to force compliance with the verdict in Brown v Board of Education for example, was one of those exceptions. Generally exceptions can be classified as emergencies or instances where local police organizations can not or will not enforce the laws- Natural Disasters, Rioting, and the like.

(Not a lawyer, so anyone who can correct and/or describe it better is welcome to over-rule me)

It would be legal and permissabe to stick all our military on the borders with Canada and Mexico. It would not be quite be as permissible to have them conduct the border checkpoints- that duty is part of ICE.
 
I don't see how this debate is gun-related, and I'm getting that IBTL feeling, but let me put my $0.02 in. :)

The main reason that the USA isn't using the military to patrol the border is that there is already an agency charged with doing it- the Border Patrol. If the Border Patrol does not have adequate resources to get the job done, then the issue is inadequate Border Patrol, DHS, and/or ICE funding, and not Posse Comitatus.

IMHO the military's job is to fight foreign military forces, NOT to act as a police force, and their training and organizational structure reflects this. Furthermore, I would argue that the histories of countries that have extensively used the military as domestic police- notably and ironically including Mexico- illustrate that the concept can cause more problems than it solves.

I find it ironic that this forum has frequent threads expressing alarm about the militarization of American police, yet here is a thread expressing support for using the military AS police. :rolleyes:
 
I don't see how this debate is gun-related
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While this board as a whole is firearms specific, the description of this particular forum is 2A, other civil rights, and the laws that affect them.

International travel is a right, crossing borders, who is allowed to do what in the security of the borders we cross are rights and laws affecting them.

I don't think the troops are not lining the borders because ICE is, or isn't because ICE isn't underfunded for the job they have to do, but because they can't engage in their readiness training and drills on the border as well as they can in proving grounds, and exercise areas way out of the Nevada Desert etc.
 
As I recall they stationed some marines on the border some time ago a juvenile goatherd got shot by them when he started plinking in their direction.

That spelled a big political bruhaha and the marines were gone.
 
To be honest, I wouldn't mind some "training exercises" on the border and in the gulf for drug interdiction.

They've got the tools to find the people sneaking across on foot/trucks and the homemade submarines we're seeing on the news lately.

Plus if they're roving, they're unlikely to shoot back at a boyscout plinking with a 22 that doesn't know Camp PotBlocker is just over the hill.
 
JimDandy beat me to it, but L&CR has an exemption from being specifically firearms related.

Meanwhile, Eppie, I agree with carguychris that we argue from a strange place, when we dislike the militarization of police but want to use the military as police. Not somewhere we want to go.

However, when not mobilized by the President in time of war, the National Guard falls under the control of its respective states and governors. So, if the border states wanted to use their National Guard units in a border patrol mode, they could. I am not sure what the rules would be with regard to state vs NGB funding for such operations, but suspect the burden would fall primarily or exclusively on the state, so I doubt we will see much of that.

The thing is, Posse Commitatus came about as a direct result of resentment of Union troops occupying the former Confederacy during Reconstruction. Civilians really, really disliked martial law, and while I can understand the rationale behind Reconstruction, it was something that Lincoln had not intended to do. (Read up on it; Johnson and his allies pushed Reconstruction - so John Wilkes Booth really screwed his buddies when he shot the President who would have prevented the following occupation. Irony, don't you love it?)

So, 140 years later, people may think using the military as cops would be a great idea. When we did it before, it did not turn out be be well-regarded, and many historians feel that much of the turmoil of the pre-Civil Rights era was a direct result of the resentment inspired by Reconstruction.

(Note that many of the same historians feel that Hitler could never have done what he did, if the allies hadn't made the Germans sign the Treaty of Versailles in a railcar...)
 
They've got the tools to find the people sneaking across on foot/trucks and the homemade submarines we're seeing on the news lately.
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It's my understanding that it is perfectly legal for the Border Patrol, DEA, USCG, etc to request the use of military (USAF, USN, etc) assets to help them with surveillance, detection, tracking, interception, etc. However, the LE agency (or USCG) personnel must get the warrants and make the arrest.

I believe this was the intent of DHS. To allow these services to interact and share. In reality, we still have departmental turf wars and budget hording.
 
regard to state vs NGB funding for such operations, but suspect the burden would fall primarily or exclusively on the state, so I doubt we will see much of that.
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I believe that they probably get some base level of Federal Funding to keep their readiness at a certain level. I've heard anecdotally of Helicopter and fighter pilots being required to repeatedly Touch-And-Go at their airfields to get enough hours to maintain their flight rating.

The National Guard helicopters also perform a lot of Search And Rescue (SAR) functions when hikers, and climbers get lost and/or injured out here between the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges. I assume with at least some Federal Funding given the readiness applications of this "training" and the "interstate commerce" possibility of someone from out of state getting lost in a park/mountain/etc.

So, 140 years later, people may think using the military as cops would be a great idea.
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I think we have it right. Civil unrest like the LA Riots, Malfeasance by the government like the Stand In The Schoolhouse Door, and National Disasters like Katrina can justify it for VERY specific and short time periods.

Further, I don't think Posse Comitatus should or would affect Foreign Nationals entering the country illegally. Especially those smuggling in a Clear And Present Danger to our communities.
 
Eppe posted the same sentiment in the General Discussion area and you guys brought up most of the points I did.

Eppe, right now, this day, our troops are unprepared for conventional warfare. This is not speculation, it's from direct observation of Active Duty units going through training at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, LA. I worked there for a year until recently. They are shifting the training focus to reintroduce conventional maneuver combat skills and they are finding that 10 years of playing super cop in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in our troops no longer knowing how to kill a real enemy army equipped with tanks and artillery and organized structure and doctrine.

So what would 10 years of patrolling our borders do to them?

If you give them a task, they will throw themselves at that task and master it, but they will forget the others if they aren't part of the current mission. Could be bad for national survival.

Besides, we already pay others to do it, we just need leadership that will let them do it.
 
If you give them a task, they will throw themselves at that task and master it, but they will forget the others if they aren't part of the current mission.
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Such is the nature of things. I imagine our forces would be pretty lost in a jungle today.

Perhaps, the solution is both specialization and rotations through distinctly different scenarios year round. One rotation at the NTC, one interdicting on the border, one at Fort Drum vs the 10th Mountain, an a trip to Camp Gonsalves for example.
 
Unless and until you can correct the lack of will on the part of our elected officials, it is entirely irrelevant *which* federal agency or surrogate "enforces" immigration law and "protects" our borders.
 
I appreciate all your responses.

Let me be clear, I am in no way advocating using the military as police. The last thing I'd want is 18 year-olds with automatic weapons in any city or town.

It seems that most people see border security more as a police function then a military defense function and I can understand people feeling that way since we aren't being invaded by an army, but by civilians. My bad, thanks for educating me.
 
....right now, this day, our troops are unprepared for conventional warfare. This is not speculation, it's from direct observation of Active Duty units going through training at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, LA. I worked there for a year until recently. They are shifting the training focus to reintroduce conventional maneuver combat skills and they are finding that 10 years of playing super cop in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in our troops no longer knowing how to kill a real enemy army equipped with tanks and artillery and organized structure and doctrine.
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Agree... This is the kind of war we have been involved in for the last 10 years. A counter insurgency campaign against an enemy whose primary weapons are (1) terrorizing the local population into submission and (2) booby traps (IEDs) set against the vastly superior friendly forces.

We are/were fighting an enemy that does not have a single tank, helicopter, or fixed wing aircraft.... when are we ever going to face such an enemy again?

Our future enemies will not only have tanks, helicopters, and combat aircraft, they will also have combat ships, attack submarines, advanced anti-aircraft defenses, satellite intelligence, UAVs, electronic warfare, cyber warfare, and who knows what else.
 
Oh, I think there are three levels of "policing" we're talking about, not just two.

The obvious two are securing the borders vs an invading army, and the police powers of the states vs citizens and legal residents.

The Army has been used, even in this century against non-governmental marauding bandits- something easily comparable to the drug smuggling currently going on. Jack Pershing tangled with Pancho Villa in the Mexican Expedition just prior to Word War I.
 
At one time, maybe even today they were using EC3 Hawkeye ( navy) aircraft to track aircraft smuggling into the states ( and Cuba) They may have been "loaned" to the CG but I wasn't part of that.
 
They may have even been Coast Guard property, they do a fair bit of work on that side with weather flights and rescue flights as well.
 
Our future enemies will not only have tanks, helicopters, and combat aircraft, they will also have combat ships, attack submarines, advanced anti-aircraft defenses, satellite intelligence, UAVs, electronic warfare, cyber warfare, and who knows what else.
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Working here at the Intelligence School I remember back around 2003 hearing Officers saying that we would never have to fight a conventional war again. I thought that was a foolish prediction then, and I still do.

The National Guard has been deployed recently to Arizona on Border duty, I think it was a Brigade that is made up of parts of the Minnesota and Iowa Guard.

Here is a link to an article about it.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-12-05/world/35285694_1_guard-troops-border-patrol-agents-arizona-national-guard
 
A newer guy in my squad called me about thirty minutes after the Boston attacks made the new. He asked, "Sergeant are we going to do anything?"

After getting over the still odd feeling of being called Sergeant (most of the guys in my squad call me Mack) I asked him to think critically a moment.

As an Armored Cavalry unit, what exactly could we do? He sheepishly said "oh". I told him that when I got the word, he'd get it to. And we bid farewell.

The U.S. military, particulary the Army is a hammer. A really well designed, modern, all steel with rubber shock absorbing handle, but still a hammer. When you use a hammer, there had best be a nail to hit.

If the Guard were to deploy to the border, it had better be because of an imminent attack by elements of the Mexican Army. The Army is not designed to stop smugglers, nor is it designed to deploy for long periods of time without a clear purpose. The 38th parallel and the old West German border served an example of what the Army is suppose to do in regards to border security. And note that North Korea still manages to inflitrate teams of commandoes into South Korea from time to time.

Further more, it would be a logistical nightmare if ground forces were deployed to the Mexican border. Like upwards of millions of dollars a day to keep a force large enough to secure the whole border.

No, the Guard does just fine in it's current mission of disaster relief and small scale martial law.
 
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