The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits military forces from performing ordinary civilian law enforcement functions such as arrest, surveillance, interdiction, search and seizure. This long standing rule was changed by the Obama Administration in early 2013 and those changes are reflected in new Military Purpose Doctrine that is worth noting. The Military Purpose Doctrine provides that, “law enforcement actions that are performed primarily for a military purpose, even when incidentally assisting civil authorities, will not violate the PCA [Posse Comitatus Act].”
“Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” Joint Publication 3-28, July 31, 2013:
The publication introduces a new addition to the DoD lexicon: “complex catastrophe.” A complex catastrophe is anything that the federal government feels it to be. If you ever had a college accounting class, I’m sure you counted widgets with the rest of the students. A widget could be anything. A complex catastrophe is a widget.
A complex catastrophe (which may “magnify requirements for defense support of civil authorities”) is defined as: “Any natural or man-made incident, including cyberspace attack, power grid failure, and terrorism, which results in cascading failures of multiple, interdependent, critical, life-sustaining infrastructure sectors and causes extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage or disruption severely affecting the population, environment, economy, public health, national morale, response efforts, and/or government functions.”
The big question is one of “what does this mean to me“? It means that the US military can now legally be employed on the streets of your town to combat anything that the USGOV feels is a ‘complex catastrophe’. Between 1878 and 2013, it couldn’t. In those intervening years, the various state national guard organizations handled ‘complex catastrophes’, managed by the respective US States. Today, its the Army and Marines.
Where once it was management from your state capitol, it is now management from the nation’s capitol.
I have discussed this earlier on this blog in 2013 and (taking the tinfoil hat off for a moment) while it may be completely harmless, it is still a fundamental change in philosophy.
(replacing the tinfoil hat) Recent revelations about IRS and EPA targeting groups who were politically opposed to the President, domestic intelligence collection that would seem to violate the 4th Amendment are disturbing The amount (Senate filibuster) of effort it took for Congress to force the Attorney General to issue a statement that the USGOV had no present plans to undertake extrajudicial killings of US Citizens by drone aircraft, etc. gives one pause as to the intentions of the new law. — the NEW NORMAL.
And what is maddening, is that even with the Herculean steps it takes to get them to just say that they have no plans to kill US citizens with drones… all that can change with the stroke of a pen when they simply decide that the law doesn't apply due to current circumstances.
And just what good is such power to have if one doesn't actually use it . . . .? One more "little change" that is taking us all towards a very bad place . . .
Funny how that happens.
What was wrong with using the National Guard?
I keep asking that question and nobody has an answer — because it's not about using the state militaries to deal with crisis situations. They do just fine. It's about setting up a legal scenario to justify using the military on US Soil against US Citizens. I can't see any other possible justification for the change in the law.
You nailed it – what the HELL is the National Guard for? President Rand Paul will deal with this!
[Not to mention the recently very successful FBI HRT…but that's completely different]
The National Guard (often referred to as 'citizen soldiers') is not politically reliable. And that is the core of this decision. They are unlikely to take direction from the White House if it goes against their neighbors.
Why else this change in the law?
Benjamin Franklin — "He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."
Another step toward the totalitarian state, with the now ironically named Democratic Party at it's head.
One more nail in the coffin of freedom.
Disrupting "national morale"? That could apply to us bloggers. Scary stuff.
It depends on who is in the White House. That's not how the country was set up, but it's what the likes of Obama and Clinton dream of.
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THE CREED BOOK OR GOD'S BOOK?
The majority of denominations use their creed books as the authority in the church for faith and practice. If the final authority is the creed book(catechism), then what purpose would the Bible serve. The Bible is relegated to a secondary reference book.
If the creed book is the authority. Why read the Bible? Why even own a Bible? There are some who say, we do not have a creed book, we a have statement of faith. Statement of faith is just a euphemistic way of saying creed book.
If denominations claim to use the Bible as their rule for faith and practice, then there would is no need for a man-made creed book.
Acts 17:10-11 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 There were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
The Berean's did not search the man-made creed books written by the scribes and elders, to substantiate the truth. The searched the Scriptures.
Acts 17:2-3 Then Paul, as his custom was, went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ."
Paul did not use man-made creed books to teach about Jesus Christ. He reasoned from the Scriptures.
The Pharisees and scribes liked to teach from the man-made creed books of the elders. (Mark 7:1-13….3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders……. 13 "making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.")
The Pharisees used man-made creed books as their final authority.
If denominations are using man-made creed books as there final authority for faith and practice, are they not making the word of God of no effect through their tradition?
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