Hey Joe, Where You Goin' With that Gun In Your Hand?

The Posse Comitatus Act (“PCA”) is a United States federal law, 18 U.S.C.§ 1385 passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. It prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services from performing traditional police functions within the United States, unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Now, according to the Washington Post, the federal government is planning to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 "trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials." WaPo reports that the first 4,700 person unit, built around an active duty combat brigade based in Ft. Stewart Georgia was activated on October 1, 2008, assigned to the US Northern Command.

At hearings on the PCA in 1981, William H. Taft, Gen. Counsel, U.S. Dep't of Defense, hit the nail on the head stating:

The [PCA] expresses one of the clearest political traditions in Anglo-American history: that using military power to enforce the civilian law is harmful to both civilian and military interests. The authors of the [PCA] drew upon a melancholy history of military rule for evidence that even the best intentioned use of the Armed Forces to govern the civil population may lead to unfortunate consequences. They knew, moreover, that military involvement in civilian affairs consumed resources needed for national defense and drew the Armed Forces into political and legal quarrels that could only harm their ability to defend the country. Accordingly, they intended that the Armed Forces be used in law enforcement only in those serious cases to which the ordinary processes of civilian law were incapable of responding.

You know when the ACLU and the Cato Institute are rushing to each other's side to form a protective shield around what little liberties we have left, sumthin's up.

CARL says, "DON'T BE DUMB.  SAVE THE ARMY TO ADDRESS THE "DEAR LEADER'S" MISCHIEF WHEN HE RUNS OUT OF VODKA, OR SOME OTHER REAL CRISIS LIKE THE MADNESS IN DARFUR.  WE GRATEFULLY DECLINE YOUR HELP. THANK YOU."