NEWS: Posse Comitatus Act to be Reviewed/Revised

President Bush is pushing congress to review the Posse Comitatus Act and extend the role the military plays in Major Disasters that happen on US Territories by the loosening of legal limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil.



I've been singing this song since the whole Katrina fiasco went down. I mentioned in several threads that I believed the whole government "Negligance and Incompetance" was intentional to give the government the stepping stone to push, change, and remove our civil rights. Of course I have no proof, but this push by Bush to give the Military even more power during 'disasters' seems to back up my beleifs tenfold.

Our government seems to run on the Problem-Reaction-Solution fix. It seems that everytime something happens, a major change is pushed through before the emotions of our congress and citizens have time to properly evaluate the change.

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Gun and Property rights issues in the aftermath of Katrina .(please watch video clip)

[edit on 9/18/2005 by QuietSoul]

[edit on 9/18/2005 by QuietSoul]

Excellent quietsoul - and I agree, "everytime something happens, a major change is pushed through before the emotions of our congress and citizens have time to properly evaluate the change."

I also agree that, "the whole government "Negligance and Incompetence" was intentional to give the government the stepping stone to push, change, and remove our civil rights."

Well said.

I was going to post a thread on this yesterday, am glad to see it hit ATSNN!
Does it make any farqin sense at all to send our National Guard to Iraq and use military domesticly? They have been planning this longer than you might think, 18 months longer than you might think. The Posse Comitatus act is the last line of legal defense against tyrany, and they have no right to suspend it, I don't give a damn what kind of emergency it is, there are agencies and National Guard Units who are already allocated and supposedly well funded to respond to this kind of thing, not armed soldiers.

www.airforcetimes.com...
The chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Homeland Security Committee said Tuesday Hurricane Katrina could lead to major changes in the military, including revoking or relaxing restrictions on putting active-duty military troops into domestic law enforcement duties....

We have to in a very quiet and careful manner look at the totality of permanent law and regulation to determine what changes should be made to meet contingencies of the nature we have experienced, whether it is a natural disaster or … a terrorist attack in the future,” he said....

He said he has been working on the concept for 18 months, well before Katrina's destructive arrival. But Katrina, with its heavy military involvement, provides examples that can help bring attention to the need for a review of the laws....

18 months prior to Katrina eh? Chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Homeland Security Committee? Welcome to the New World.

Review NorthCom.

...and remember, private security firms using mercenaries were hired by government, and deployed in both Iraq and New Orleans.

Wow, not good.
This would not remotely pass a Hillary test.
The failures at the local and state levels will not and cannot be solved by the use of more Federal power.
But wait, there are no failures admitted to at the local and state levels...just look to New Orleans and Louisiana for proof of such.
Anything and everything that happened there was the Federal governments fault. But yet, in Alabama and Mississippi, the local and state governments did exceptionally well, hence no blame placed at the Federal level.

Won't be long before you have a few parading in Crawford, Tx., chanting: Get our troops out of occupied New Orleans.....






seekerof

[edit on 18-9-2005 by Seekerof]

Call me a kook, I don't care, but every day, the Bush admin does something which just seems to confirm more and more the crazy thought that this storm was engineered. It's all just too convenient and fits the plan too neatly. Bush is indeed a war President - the enemy is the US Constitution, and the Constitution is losing. I know that 'they' engineered, or at least with full prior knowledge allowed 9-11 to happen, so the only thing in my mind stopping me from fully believing that they created this disaster is the question of whether or not they have the technology.

The use of mercenaries in Iraq - which Soficrow mentioned - was widely publicized, and the reaction to that was minimal because it was "over there". Now recently, with the advent of the feds dispatching mercenaries in NO, the reaction has again been minimized because of the Iraq precedent. If there hadn't been the socio-psychological preparation of seeing mercenaries used in Iraq first, the reaction to them in NO would have been bigger. This is conditioning folks, and next it will be foreign troops.

Welcome to the pot, frogs. Looks like the jacuzzi just got a few degrees hotter. Did anyone notice?

Anyone who knows anything about a jacuzzi knows that a few degrees added to the temperature is always a good thing.





seekerof

[edit on 18-9-2005 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace

Welcome to the pot, frogs. Looks like the jacuzzi just got a few degrees hotter. Did anyone notice?

Very few. And the official defenders of the corporate takeover continue to justify their existence.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Anyone who knows anything about a jacuzzi knows that a few degrees added to the temperature is always a good thing.

Sure...if you want to make frog soup.

There was mention a few posts up about the benefit of using state fronted Army Reserves vs Federal Troops. I believe it is a little known fact that the Reserves who are serving down in the Katrina Zone have been federalized. That means that they are now under the auspice of Dub and company and not state level direction.

I guess I don't know, exactly, what that means to the discussion, but I think it might have a bearing on the applicaton of posse comitatus.


Edited because I fat-finger when I type and spelled auspice with two "O"s and 3 "L"s.

[edit on 18-9-2005 by sigung86]

Originally posted by Seekerof
in Alabama and Mississippi, the local and state governments did exceptionally well, hence no blame placed at the Federal level.
[edit on 18-9-2005 by Seekerof]

Sure thing Seekerof. That's not what I heard for almost two weeks from the locals in Missisippi, nice of you to parrot the No Federal Blame Line though. They are seeking to blame literally ANYBODY but Shrub.

www.clarionledger.com...
E-mail suggests government seeking to blame groups
Federal officials appear to be seeking proof to blame the flood of New Orleans on environmental groups, documents show.

The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."

And a personal note to Shrub if he has anybody following these boards, in response to this statement...

www.nytimes.com...
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.''

Hey shrub, what the hell was FEMA doing with half a billion dollars a day then? They didn't even have a can of beanie weenies you dolt. Which of the half billion daily parts of "Emergency Management" don't you get? Yeah, Soldiers handling law enforcement, you go Darth Bush!

I have mixed felling on this one, I for one have not trouble about our military troops helping the nation in case of a major disaster.

Been a military wife for a long time I have seen first hand that our troops are not some alien entity that has not ties to the nation, they are part of American and the America people.

They have families in the US and they are our sons, daughters and spouses.

I will be worry about private entities pay by private interest patrolling our nation that I do of the Military.

After all even when my husband was a soldier with a mind set that the nation was first and family second, he always assured me that when they said the nation first it also goes if the leaders of the nation turns against the citizens of the nation.

Most soldiers will defend the land and their families too.

But pay mercenaries are only for the money.

Lets worry about what the big man in the white house is trying to do and what more powers he wants to get over the individual citizens and remember that our troops are Americans also, their families and them as individuals will be at the mercy of the changes done by the administration also.

I don't much like the idea of federal troops being used for domestic operations. The various state national guards should be able to handle anything that might come up and if they can't, they can always request help from other states--assuming of course they have a governor worthy of the name.

So I wonder if the mayor of New Orleans and governor of Louisiana have publicly stated that they are not able to handle any future hurricane threat and the military should immediately take over in all future situations. I don't hear other states seeking this. I do not want the military directing traffic and enforcing mandatory evacuations because there may be a threat of something.

I believe South Carolina evacuated the entire coastline or a good chunck of real estate a few years back from a hurricane threat and had traffic backed up all night with horror stories of the traffic mess. Then the state fixed the problems and they now use all 4 lanes of divided highways to evacuate the beach in an emergency evacuation. I certainly don't want the federal government to start handling everything and forcing me out of my house just because the local police and local governor can't follow through on a disaster plan.

If the local law enforcement, state government and national guard can't handle things, then maybe the military could come in but I do not think they should be first to do police duty. On the other hand if major coastal cities are more afraid of looting (for things other than food and water), then maybe they should allow military enforcement. Then all the locals who refuse to leave can be shot for any crime (that's assuming that our troops are trained to kill and not do law enforcement).

Well it starts with disaster relief, then next thing you know they are being called in to quell protests, and riots. Kent State all over again, but this time with Soldiers and Automatic Weapons. This suspension, or even discussion of suspending of the Posse Comitatus Act needs to end now, it is the one legal barrier to tyrany that we have left. There are agencies that have the resources and the funding already to respond to crisis and disaster, however in this Case, FEMA stepped in and wasn't allowing the usual relief efforts. You are being conditioned to accept the nessecity of armed troops in law enforcement and 'emergency' situations, I think because they know good and damned well their gig is almost up. The internet is a powerful and unprecedented exchange of information, and people are learning things that paint a not so pretty picture of our ruling classes and their dealings. We cannot allow them to use our soldiery to enforce laws they aren't even reading before they pass them folks, that never works out for well for the governed.