U.S. Military May Be Deployed Against U.S. Citizens - The End of Posse Comitatus?

Is Posse Comitatus Dead? US Troops on US Streets

October 07, 2008

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/7/us_army_denies_unit_will_be

...a US Army unit [the Consequence Management Response Force, CCMRF, or “sea-smurf” for short.] is now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. [T]he force “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.” The military has since claimed the force will not be used for civil unrest, but questions remain. [DemocracyNow! speaks] to Army Col. Michael Boatner, future operations division chief of USNORTHCOM, and Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine.

...there is a law on the books called the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act that says that the president of the United States, as commander-in-chief, cannot put the military on our streets. And this is a violation of that...

President Bush tried to get around this act a couple years ago in the Defense Authorization Act that he signed that got rid of some of those restrictions...National Security Presidential Directive 51, that he signed on May 9th of 2007...gives the President enormous powers to declare a catastrophic emergency and to bypass our regular system of laws, essentially, to impose a form of martial law.

[A] letter, signed by every member of the National Governors Association, said, “This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors…to the federal government.”

If the economy does collapse, if people can’t go down to the bank to withdraw their savings, or get cash from an ATM, there may be serious “civil unrest,” and the “sea-smurfs” may be called upon sooner than we imagine to assist with “crowd control.”

see also:

Invasion of the Sea-Smurfs

October 02, 2008

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/10/2/amy_goodmans_latest_column_invasion_of_the_sea_smurfs