Repealing Posse Comitatus has been one of the main goals of the neo-cons in their evil plans. I believe the holding back of the New Orleans troops was done deliberately to force the issue, and NPR has now reported that Bush demanded that Blanco and Nagin ask for federalization, for a request and they refused.
We know that Cheney had a plan prepared for martial law if there is another terrorist attack. We know that Sen. John Warner is going to hold hearings on repealing Posse Comitatus--which prevents the use of Army or Air Force troops for law enforcement duties.
And the WSJ just opined:
"The New Orleans mess improved only after the Pentagon got involved. Though the military is normally barred from domestic law enforcement by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, Defense officials have been doing a lot of creative thinking about what they can do and what the public now expects post-September 11."
This is dangerous stuff, Kossacks. What is Posse Comitatus and why the neo-cons so hot to repeal it--on the flip.
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
-Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1385
If Posse Comitatus is repealed, the military could be used as police, beefing up the police state considerably. Throw in a draft, and Bush and Cheney could empower themselves on a whole new total control level.
Posse Comitatus, from the "force of the county", empowered local sheriffs to raise a posse of males over age 15, a force, to handle riots or for other needs. After the Great Betrayal of 1877, Hayes agreed to restrict the military from being able to be called into a posse--and the end of Reconstruction was set, legally. The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878. Northern troops could thus no longer be used to police the South and they were withdrawn.
Col. John Brinkerhoff of FEMA said in a Homeland Security report in 2002:
"President Bush and Congress should initiate action to enact a new law that would set forth in clear terms a statement of the rules for using military forces for homeland security and for enforcing the laws of the United States. Things have changed a lot since 1878, and the Posse Comitatus Act is not only irrelevant but also downright dangerous to the proper and effective use of military forces for domestic duties."
The Washington Post from yesterday says that repealing the Act now has Dem neo-con Joementum behind it!
WASHINGTON -- Federal officials concerned about the slow response to Hurricane Katrina are looking at new ways to organize front-line emergency workers during catastrophes, including possibly using federal troops for law enforcement.
Talk of the changes comes less than a year after the Homeland Security Department issued a national response plan that puts local and state authorities in charge of a disaster's immediate aftermath.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., right, and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., meet with reporters on Capitol Hill Friday, Sept. 14, 2001, after the Senate voted to approve a $40-billion appropriation to deal with the aftermath ofTuesday's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and a resolution giving President Bush authority to use military force to deal with the terrorist threat. The showing of national and political unity, displayed after the Sept. 11 attacks, is missing in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and her deadly winds have subsided. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) (Dennis Cook - AP)
"Our current system is inadequate for a catastrophe of this magnitude," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee said Thursday of Katrina. "This has simply overwhelmed local, state and federal systems. We need a new approach when we're confronted with a natural disaster or, I would say, a terrorist attack that has these kinds of consequences."
Part of the debate concerns whether local first responders _ police, firefighters and paramedics _ can answer the call of duty if they also are victims of a catastrophe. Seventy percent of Coast Guard personnel in the Gulf Coast region, for example, lost their own homes as a result of the storm, Collins said.
Possible changes range from staffing regional backup teams immediately outside a disaster area before it hits to designating federal forces as primary responders.
Collins and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said they also would consider ways to temporarily ease the Posse Comitatus Act's prohibition on military forces carrying out law enforcement missions.
Local authorities agreed that emergency responders need immediate backup support when faced with Katrina-sized calamities. But they questioned whether the federal government should assume front-line response missions given the Bush administration's tardy response to the hurricane and subsequent flooding.
Bushco deliberately delayed response and tried to get Blanco to go federal, knowing she wouldn't--so they could "relax" the Posse Comitatus restrictions within a few weeks of the disaster.
Why would the neo-cons want to get rid of Posse Comitatus? Simple. It allows them to possess the power of the Armed Forces and use it as a police force to control the population.
They would even be able to use them to try and keep everyone in their homes during a Code Red alert. Repealing Posse Comitatus gives Buschco and the neo-cons control of a police state with true muscle if they want it.
Given the recent polls, they may soon need it. We need to be on our guard and join forces with many others who have long feared that this dark day may come to pass.
I urge you to contact your Congressperson and demand they vote against repeal or relaxation of this important safeguard.
Here is more, from overseas:
Also on Friday, Bush administration officials sent Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco a legal document demanding that she sign over control of the state's National Guard as well as state and local police units. The memo sought their federalization under the Insurrection Act, a statute that allows the president to take control of state militias under conditions in which state governments themselves are unable to "suppress rebellion."
Blanco rejected this demand, no doubt seeing it as an admission of failure by her own administration.
For Bush, the assumption of full military control was a matter of political importance. Under the Insurrection Act, the US president is required to issue a public order for those in "rebellion" to cease and disperse. There is little doubt that had he gained the acquiescence of the Louisiana governor, he would have taken to the airwaves as the "commander-in-chief," in an attempt to dispel the wave of outrage sweeping the country over the government's response to the disaster.
As early as Wednesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was telling the press that "martial law has now been declared in Mississippi and Louisiana," an indication of the administration's intentions but not the legal reality in either state.
http://www.asiantribune.com/show_article.php?id=2695
And here's the early August WaPo article on the new DoD plans for using troops within the US in case of terror attack:
Civil liberties groups have warned that the military's expanded involvement in homeland defense could bump up against the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts the use of troops in domestic law enforcement. But Pentagon authorities have told Congress they see no need to change the law.
According to military lawyers here, the dispatch of ground troops would most likely be justified on the basis of the president's authority under Article 2 of the Constitution to serve as commander in chief and protect the nation. The Posse Comitatus Act exempts actions authorized by the Constitution.
"That would be the place we would start from" in making the legal case, said Col. John Gereski, a senior Northcom lawyer.
But Gereski also said he knew of no court test of this legal argument, and Keating left the door open to seeking an amendment of the Posse Comitatus Act.
One potentially tricky area, the admiral said, involves National Guard officers who are put in command of task forces that include active-duty as well as Guard units -- an approach first used last year at the Group of Eight summit in Georgia. Guard troops, acting under state control, are exempt from Posse Comitatus prohibitions.
"It could be a challenge for the commander who's a Guardsman, if we end up in a fairly complex, dynamic scenario," Keating said. He cited a potential situation in which Guard units might begin rounding up people while regular forces could not.
From The Jurist:
With Washington reeling from criticism about its response to Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive], lawmakers are again considering relaxation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 [Wikipedia backgrounder; text of 18 US Code s. 1385], which generally prohibits federal soldiers or National Guard troops under federal control from operating in a law enforcement capacity on US soil. Approximately 19,000 active-duty soldiers and 45,000 National Guard soldiers - the latter currently under the control of Louisiana Governor Katheleen Blanco - are now involved in relief efforts. Military and civic officials have thusfar been at pains to stress that their involvement in recovery work and even the National Guard's law enforcement role [JURIST report] does not amount to any sort of martial law.
Gen. Peter Pace, expected to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff later this year, has called for Posse Comitatus to be reconsidered in response to suggestions that it slowed down deployment of troops, but has not specifically endorsed a relaxation. Sen. John Warner (R-VA) [official website], chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee [official website], has questioned restrictions under the law since the September 11th attacks, and has promised to do so again. Earlier this summer, new Department of Defense contingency plans for response to terrorist attacks also raised questions about the act [JURIST report] and domestic deployment of federal troops. Legal scholars, however, have questioned any relaxation of the statute, noting that in earlier disasters "Congress and the public have seen the military as a panacea for domestic problems", and "minor exceptions to the PCA can quickly expand to become major exceptions" [75 Washington University Law Quarterly 953; full text].