Jim Kouri
Law Enforcement Examiner
5/20/2012
The new defense authorization act all but erases decades of U.S. government compliance with the letter and the spirit of the Posse Comitatus Act 1878, a law that prohibits the use of the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions within the United States, according to police officials and others opposed to the militarizing of American law enforcement.
Provisions in the new authorization act allow military reservists — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — to be called to duty and deployed in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency within the homeland, as well as mobilization of reserve units to support counterterrorism and security missions overseas, according to the American Forces Press Service’s Donna Miles…
…political strategist Mike Baker is confused about the lack of news coverage and lack of controversy over the prospect of giving the U.S. warfighters so much leeway to operation within U.S. borders. “Imagine if President [George W.] Bush announced this increased use of military resources stateside. Does anyone doubt the media frenzy as well a the vitriol that would emanate from Democrats in both houses of the U.S. Congress?” Baker asked rhetorically…
Read the entire article at the National Law Enforcement Examiner.
Update: Obama’s bin Laden leaks angered military
When they published their revealing book last August about the nation’s fight against terrorism, the authors, two New York Times national security reporters, immediately felt heat from the Pentagon for dishing too much operational info about the killing of Osama bin Laden.
“I was stopped by a very senior officer in the special operations community who basically wanted to rip my lungs out,” said Thom Shanker, who co-authored “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda,” with Eric Schmitt.
But, he revealed at a counter terrorism expo this week, the info came directly and officially from the White House, not some garbage can digging operation. “I said to him, ‘Sir, that information came officially to us from the podium at the White House,’” Shanker said…
