Rummy's posse: Pentagon police work.IN 1878 Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act Posse Comitatus Act, 1878, U.S. federal law that makes it a crime to use the military as a domestic police force in the United States under most circumstances. , barring "participation by a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity" on United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. soil unless specifically authorized by law. Army troops sent to discourage insurrection in the post Civil War South were engaging in classic mission creep Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes.[1] The term often implies a certain disapproval of newly adopted goals by the user of the term. , enforcing workaday laws that would be more appropriately handled by town sheriffs, perhaps with the assistance of ad hoc For this purpose. Meaning "to this" in Latin, it refers to dealing with special situations as they occur rather than functions that are repeated on a regular basis. See ad hoc query and ad hoc mode. "posses" drawn from local citizens. The act was intended to restore the armed forces to their proper task of defending the United States from external threats. Over the years, exemptions have been added. But the main thrust of the law--keeping the four fighting branches of the military away from American citizens--has stood firm. Until now. In June 2005, the Defense Department approved a sweeping new reorientation Noun 1. reorientation - a fresh orientation; a changed set of attitudes and beliefs orientation - an integrated set of attitudes and beliefs 2. reorientation - the act of changing the direction in which something is oriented , called "The Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support," that will (in the document's own words) "fundamenttally change the Department's approach to homeland defense in an historic and important way." The military now will take a "lead role" in "execut[ing] military missions" on American soil to "dissuade, deter, and defeat attacks." A key part of that lead role--and the most likely way this new strategy will affect nonterrorist citizens--will be "to obtain and promptly exploit all actionable information needed to protect the United States." The military will "develop automated tools to improve data fusion Data fusion, is generally defined as the use of techniques that combine data from multiple sources and gather that information in order to achieve inferences, which will be more efficient than if they were achieved by means of a single source. , analysis, and management, to track systematically large amounts of data and to detect, fuse and analyze aberrant patterns of activity," and it will create "a cadre of specialized terrorism intelligence analysts within the defense intelligence community" Among the intelligence already being collected is a detailed nationwide database of every college and high school student over the age of 16, which the Defense Department says it needs to boost military recruitment. The Pentagon claims the new policy does not create any conflicts with the Posse Comitatus Act. But if one comes up, U.S. Northern Command lawyer Col. John Gereski told The Washington Post, the Washington Post, The Morning daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the dominant paper in the U.S. capital and one of the nation's leading newspapers. Established in 1877 as a Democratic Party organ, it changed orientation and ownership several times and faced first line of legal defense will be Article 2 of the Constitution, which gives the president authority as commander in chief of the armed forces. Should that fail to impress, Congress may be encouraged to amend the 1878 law. |
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