Evidently, our president does not have to formally declare martial law to bring it in to effect, according to this report.
There are links within this article so I am including the URL.
The URL:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990521_xex_clinton_and_.shtml
The article:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
Clinton and 'martial law'
Posse Comitatus Act
no check on White House power,
attorneys claim
By Sarah Foster
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
President Clinton doesn't need to sign an
executive order to start a full-scale gun grab.
He doesn't need to declare martial law if he
wants to use the armed forces to deal with
public unrest. And if he figures a state
government isn't doing all it should to enforce
some federal law that nobody likes, he can use
federal troops to make certain that the law is
complied with -- even if the governor and
everyone living in the state are adamantly
opposed to it.
He can do all these things on his own, without
seeking advice or approval from Congress.
Not even the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which
Congress intended as a shield to protect
citizens from the military, places any
significant limitations on presidential power.
That's what Virginia attorneys William Olson
and Alan Woll discovered when they looked
into the matter for Gun Owners of America, a
Washington-based lobbying organization
dedicated to defending the Second
Amendment.
Last December Olson and Woll published an
analysis on "Executive Orders and National
Emergencies: Presidential Power Grab Nearly
Unchecked," which was featured in
WorldNetDaily. This earlier work prompted
Larry Pratt, president and executive director of
GOA, to commission the attorneys to examine
a related issue.
"I asked them to look at all the executive orders
and see if there was a nexus with guns; some
kind of hook that would allow the government
to get a hook on our trigger guards, so our
guns can be pulled from our hands through
some power they had delegated to themselves
by executive order," Pratt recalled in a
telephone interview.
Though unable to find a direct reference that
would permit gun confiscation, "What they
discovered was worse," said Pratt. "The
president doesn't have to sign an executive
order. He already has the power to go after our
guns."
The Olson-Woll report entitled "Presidential
Powers to Use the U.S. Armed Forces to control
Potential Civilian Disturbances," developed
naturally from their earlier research, but it is
written as though it were a memo to the
president, from a "Counsel's Office," in
response to a White House request for a legal
opinion about how far the president can go in
using the military for law enforcement
purposes in the event of a Y2K or other crisis:
Would a declaration of martial law be
necessary to call out the military? What about
the Posse Comitatus Act?
"This memorandum is fictional but accurately
depicts the broad powers assumed and
exercised by presidents to utilize U.S. military
forces to regulate civilian activity," the authors
state in a disclaimer.
"We wrote it that way to draw peoples'
attention to the issues," Olson explained by
telephone. "We hoped that using this format to
present the information would make it more
real. A lot of what we talk about sounds like
history, but it's quite current, and one could
imagine the president asking for advice on this
very issue."
The answers to the hypothetical questions
came as a "complete surprise" to Larry Pratt
and to the authors themselves. "We had no
idea that his powers were so broad," said
Olson. "The fact that there are these vast
standby statutory powers is shocking. I'm
afraid Congress keeps passing the laws that
grant this power and never stands back and
asks, 'What have we done?' It's time that they
start looking and asking."
The statutes referred to are found in Title 10 of
the U.S. Code, which deals with the Armed
Forces. Through them the president is given
authority to intervene with military force in a
state's domestic disputes, upon request from
the state legislature or governor -- or without it.
Some examples cited by Olson and Woll:
Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 331: Whenever
there is an insurrection in any State against its
government, the President may, upon the
request of its legislature or its governor ... use
such of the armed forces, as he considers
necessary to suppress the insurrection.
Title 10, U.S. Code, 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 ... 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.
Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 333: The President,
by using the militia or the armed forces, or
both, or by other means, shall take such
measures as he considers necessary to
suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic
violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy,
if it hinders the execution of the laws of that
State, and of the United States within the State
... or opposes or obstructs the execution of the
laws of the United States or impedes the course
of justice under those laws ...
Olson and Woll discovered that the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in 1863 that the president
can unilaterally decide whether an insurrection
is in effect and determine how much force is
necessary to suppress it. He can "brand as
belligerents the inhabitants of any area in
general insurrection."
Equally shocking, in Olson's view, as the fact
that the president can use the military against
civilians, is the fact that former presidents have
done so on "many occasions" -- none of them
declaring martial law.
For example, in 1914 President Woodrow
Wilson deployed federal troops in Colorado to
suppress a labor dispute. Olson-Wolls point
out that Wilson ordered the U.S. Army to
disarm American citizens -- including state and
local officials, sheriffs, the police and the
National Guard; to arrest American citizens; to
monitor the state judicial process and re-arrest
(and hold in military custody) persons released
by the state courts; and to deny writs of habeas
corpus issued by state courts.
Earlier, in South Carolina in 1871, without
declaring martial law, President Grant sent
troops into nine counties of South Carolina to
enforce a proclamation commanding the
residents to give up their arms and
ammunition.
Between 1807 and 1925, federal troops were
used more than 100 times to quell domestic
disturbances -- sometimes the presence of the
troops alone was enough to discourage the
participants.
"Look at the history," Olson exclaimed. "None
of what's happening is new. Could you ever
imagine that the President of the United States
could order the Army to disarm sheriffs,
disarm police, and disarm the National Guard?
Isn't that beyond what you'd ever dream?
"But it has happened. It's the fact that this has
happened that should cause people to take this
issue seriously."
But doesn't the Posse Comitatus Act provide
restrictions against the use of the military? This
is the act that prohibits the Army or Air force
from acting as a posse comitatus -- "the
population of a county the sheriff may
summon to assist him in certain cases."
"No one should ever think the Posse Comitatus
Act is any check whatsoever on the ability of
the federal government to employ military
might against civilians," said Olson.
"We were surprised at how weak the Posse
Comitatus Act is," he continued. "There have
been no prosecutions ever, and it doesn't apply
to any branch of the armed forces except the
Army and the Air Force. It doesn't have any
implementing regulations, yet it has a huge
exception -- that deployment of the Army or
Air Force as a posse comitatus is a crime,
'except in cases and under circumstances
expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act
of Congress.'
"That 'Constitution or Act of Congress'
exception is so broad you can drive a truck
through," Olson remarked.
"The final thing that surprised us was that that
the military doesn't need an order from the
president to have control over civilians," Olson
said. "I had always thought only the president
could declare martial law, but apparently not.
Apparently any commander can do it, can
suspend all civil rights."
Larry Pratt considers this last the most
egregious of all the Olson-Woll findings.
"Military commanders can act on the basis that
there is an emergency," said Pratt. "They don't
have to wait until martial law is declared. The
powers that they have in their hands are
tremendous.
"People can't expect President Clinton to sit
there in front of a camera and say, 'Tonight I
have declared martial law,'" Pratt said. "You'll
just find out about it when you try and get on
the main highway and there's a humvee with a
soldier who says, 'Turn back.' And when you
ask why, he puts his gun into ready position
and says, 'I'm only following orders. Please
turn back.'
"You can challenge that. You can say they -- the
commander or the soldier -- have no
constitutional authority for this, and you may
be correct. But you will be arguing on the
wrong side of a barbed wire fence. They can
simply do it. It will not be debated.
"It's wonderful," Pratt noted, ironically. "It goes
beyond what [White House spokesperson]
Paul Begala said about executive orders: You
know, 'Stroke of a pen. Law of the land. Kinda
cool.' Martial law could be initiated by one
commander sending an e-mail to a guy at the
base to muster his troops.
"Stroke of a keyboard, martial law. Kinda cool,"
Pratt said. [/quote]
---
Here's the link to the actual report:
http://www.gunowners.org/prespower.htm
It's quite long so I did not want to post it here.
------------------
John/az
"Just because something is popular, does not make it right."
www.countdown9199.com
There are links within this article so I am including the URL.
The URL:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990521_xex_clinton_and_.shtml
The article:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
Clinton and 'martial law'
Posse Comitatus Act
no check on White House power,
attorneys claim
By Sarah Foster
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
President Clinton doesn't need to sign an
executive order to start a full-scale gun grab.
He doesn't need to declare martial law if he
wants to use the armed forces to deal with
public unrest. And if he figures a state
government isn't doing all it should to enforce
some federal law that nobody likes, he can use
federal troops to make certain that the law is
complied with -- even if the governor and
everyone living in the state are adamantly
opposed to it.
He can do all these things on his own, without
seeking advice or approval from Congress.
Not even the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which
Congress intended as a shield to protect
citizens from the military, places any
significant limitations on presidential power.
That's what Virginia attorneys William Olson
and Alan Woll discovered when they looked
into the matter for Gun Owners of America, a
Washington-based lobbying organization
dedicated to defending the Second
Amendment.
Last December Olson and Woll published an
analysis on "Executive Orders and National
Emergencies: Presidential Power Grab Nearly
Unchecked," which was featured in
WorldNetDaily. This earlier work prompted
Larry Pratt, president and executive director of
GOA, to commission the attorneys to examine
a related issue.
"I asked them to look at all the executive orders
and see if there was a nexus with guns; some
kind of hook that would allow the government
to get a hook on our trigger guards, so our
guns can be pulled from our hands through
some power they had delegated to themselves
by executive order," Pratt recalled in a
telephone interview.
Though unable to find a direct reference that
would permit gun confiscation, "What they
discovered was worse," said Pratt. "The
president doesn't have to sign an executive
order. He already has the power to go after our
guns."
The Olson-Woll report entitled "Presidential
Powers to Use the U.S. Armed Forces to control
Potential Civilian Disturbances," developed
naturally from their earlier research, but it is
written as though it were a memo to the
president, from a "Counsel's Office," in
response to a White House request for a legal
opinion about how far the president can go in
using the military for law enforcement
purposes in the event of a Y2K or other crisis:
Would a declaration of martial law be
necessary to call out the military? What about
the Posse Comitatus Act?
"This memorandum is fictional but accurately
depicts the broad powers assumed and
exercised by presidents to utilize U.S. military
forces to regulate civilian activity," the authors
state in a disclaimer.
"We wrote it that way to draw peoples'
attention to the issues," Olson explained by
telephone. "We hoped that using this format to
present the information would make it more
real. A lot of what we talk about sounds like
history, but it's quite current, and one could
imagine the president asking for advice on this
very issue."
The answers to the hypothetical questions
came as a "complete surprise" to Larry Pratt
and to the authors themselves. "We had no
idea that his powers were so broad," said
Olson. "The fact that there are these vast
standby statutory powers is shocking. I'm
afraid Congress keeps passing the laws that
grant this power and never stands back and
asks, 'What have we done?' It's time that they
start looking and asking."
The statutes referred to are found in Title 10 of
the U.S. Code, which deals with the Armed
Forces. Through them the president is given
authority to intervene with military force in a
state's domestic disputes, upon request from
the state legislature or governor -- or without it.
Some examples cited by Olson and Woll:
Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 331: Whenever
there is an insurrection in any State against its
government, the President may, upon the
request of its legislature or its governor ... use
such of the armed forces, as he considers
necessary to suppress the insurrection.
Title 10, U.S. Code, 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 ... 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.
Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 333: The President,
by using the militia or the armed forces, or
both, or by other means, shall take such
measures as he considers necessary to
suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic
violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy,
if it hinders the execution of the laws of that
State, and of the United States within the State
... or opposes or obstructs the execution of the
laws of the United States or impedes the course
of justice under those laws ...
Olson and Woll discovered that the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in 1863 that the president
can unilaterally decide whether an insurrection
is in effect and determine how much force is
necessary to suppress it. He can "brand as
belligerents the inhabitants of any area in
general insurrection."
Equally shocking, in Olson's view, as the fact
that the president can use the military against
civilians, is the fact that former presidents have
done so on "many occasions" -- none of them
declaring martial law.
For example, in 1914 President Woodrow
Wilson deployed federal troops in Colorado to
suppress a labor dispute. Olson-Wolls point
out that Wilson ordered the U.S. Army to
disarm American citizens -- including state and
local officials, sheriffs, the police and the
National Guard; to arrest American citizens; to
monitor the state judicial process and re-arrest
(and hold in military custody) persons released
by the state courts; and to deny writs of habeas
corpus issued by state courts.
Earlier, in South Carolina in 1871, without
declaring martial law, President Grant sent
troops into nine counties of South Carolina to
enforce a proclamation commanding the
residents to give up their arms and
ammunition.
Between 1807 and 1925, federal troops were
used more than 100 times to quell domestic
disturbances -- sometimes the presence of the
troops alone was enough to discourage the
participants.
"Look at the history," Olson exclaimed. "None
of what's happening is new. Could you ever
imagine that the President of the United States
could order the Army to disarm sheriffs,
disarm police, and disarm the National Guard?
Isn't that beyond what you'd ever dream?
"But it has happened. It's the fact that this has
happened that should cause people to take this
issue seriously."
But doesn't the Posse Comitatus Act provide
restrictions against the use of the military? This
is the act that prohibits the Army or Air force
from acting as a posse comitatus -- "the
population of a county the sheriff may
summon to assist him in certain cases."
"No one should ever think the Posse Comitatus
Act is any check whatsoever on the ability of
the federal government to employ military
might against civilians," said Olson.
"We were surprised at how weak the Posse
Comitatus Act is," he continued. "There have
been no prosecutions ever, and it doesn't apply
to any branch of the armed forces except the
Army and the Air Force. It doesn't have any
implementing regulations, yet it has a huge
exception -- that deployment of the Army or
Air Force as a posse comitatus is a crime,
'except in cases and under circumstances
expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act
of Congress.'
"That 'Constitution or Act of Congress'
exception is so broad you can drive a truck
through," Olson remarked.
"The final thing that surprised us was that that
the military doesn't need an order from the
president to have control over civilians," Olson
said. "I had always thought only the president
could declare martial law, but apparently not.
Apparently any commander can do it, can
suspend all civil rights."
Larry Pratt considers this last the most
egregious of all the Olson-Woll findings.
"Military commanders can act on the basis that
there is an emergency," said Pratt. "They don't
have to wait until martial law is declared. The
powers that they have in their hands are
tremendous.
"People can't expect President Clinton to sit
there in front of a camera and say, 'Tonight I
have declared martial law,'" Pratt said. "You'll
just find out about it when you try and get on
the main highway and there's a humvee with a
soldier who says, 'Turn back.' And when you
ask why, he puts his gun into ready position
and says, 'I'm only following orders. Please
turn back.'
"You can challenge that. You can say they -- the
commander or the soldier -- have no
constitutional authority for this, and you may
be correct. But you will be arguing on the
wrong side of a barbed wire fence. They can
simply do it. It will not be debated.
"It's wonderful," Pratt noted, ironically. "It goes
beyond what [White House spokesperson]
Paul Begala said about executive orders: You
know, 'Stroke of a pen. Law of the land. Kinda
cool.' Martial law could be initiated by one
commander sending an e-mail to a guy at the
base to muster his troops.
"Stroke of a keyboard, martial law. Kinda cool,"
Pratt said. [/quote]
---
Here's the link to the actual report:
http://www.gunowners.org/prespower.htm
It's quite long so I did not want to post it here.
------------------
John/az
"Just because something is popular, does not make it right."
www.countdown9199.com