Then throw THIS in for good measure....good fascist measure.....
Is THIS America?
Posse Comitatus anyone?
Mission Creep Hits Home
American armed forces are assuming major new domestic policing and surveillance roles.
By William M. Arkin, William M. Arkin is a military affairs
analyst who writes regularly for Opinion. E-mail:
warkin@igc.org.
SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. — Preoccupied with the war
in Iraq and still traumatized by Sept. 11, 2001, the
American public has paid little attention to some of
what is being done inside the United States in the name
of anti-terrorism. Under the banner of "homeland
security," the military and intelligence communities are
implementing far-reaching changes that blur the lines
between terrorism and other kinds of crises and will
break down long-established barriers to military action
and surveillance within the U.S.
"We must start thinking differently," says Air Force
Gen. Ralph E. "Ed" Eberhart, the newly installed
commander of Northern Command, the military's
homeland security arm. Before 9/11, he says, the
military and intelligence systems were focused on "the
away game" and not properly focused on "the home
game." "Home," of course, is the United States.
Eberhart's Colorado-based command is charged with enhancing homeland
security in two ways: by improving the military's capability to defend the country's
borders, coasts and airspace — unquestionably within the military's
long-established mission — and by providing "military assistance to civil
authorities" when authorized by the secretary of Defense or the president.
That too may sound unexceptionable: The military has long had mechanisms to
respond to a request for help from state governors. New after 9/11 are more
aggressive preparations and the presumption that local government will not be
able to carry the new homeland security load. Being the military, moreover,
contingency planners approach preparing by assuming the worst. All of this is a
major — and potentially dangerous — departure from past policy.
The U.S. military operates under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits
the direct use of federal troops "to execute the laws" of the United States. The
courts have interpreted this to mean that the military is prohibited from any active
role in direct civilian law enforcement, such as search, seizure or arrest of
civilians.
"There are abundant reasons for rejecting the further expansion of the military's
domestic role," says Mackubin T. Owens, a professor of strategy and force
planning at the Naval War College. Looking at the issue historically, Owens
wrote in an August 2002 essay in the National Review's online edition that "the
use of soldiers as a posse [places] them in the uncomfortable position of taking
orders from local authorities who had an interest in the disputes that provoked the
unrest in the first place." Moreover, Owens said, becoming more involved in
domestic policing can be "subtle and subversive … like a lymphoma or termite
infestation." Though we are far from having "tanks rumbling through the streets,"
he said, the potential long-term effect of an increasing military role in police and
law enforcement activities is "a military contemptuous of American society and
unresponsive to civilian authorities."
Eberhart says his Northern Command operates scrupulously within the bounds of
the law. "We believe the [Posse Comitatus] Act, as amended, provides the
authority we need to do our job, and no modification is needed at this time," he
told the House Armed Services Committee in March.
Of course, what he knows is that amendments approved by Congress in 1996 for
that earlier civilian war, the war on drugs, have already expanded the military's
domestic powers so that Washington can act unilaterally in dispatching the military
without waiting for a state's request for help. Long before 9/11, Congress
authorized the military to assist local law enforcement officials in domestic "drug
interdiction" and during terrorist incidents involving weapons of mass destruction.
Furthermore, the president, after proclaiming a state of emergency, can authorize
additional actions.
Indeed, the military is presently operating under just such an emergency
declaration. Eberhart's command has defined three levels of operations, each of
which triggers a larger set of authorized activities. The levels are "extraordinary,"
"emergency" and "temporary." At the "temporary" level, which covers such things
as the Olympic Games or the Super Bowl, limited assistance can be provided to
law enforcement agencies when a governor requests it, primarily in such areas as
logistics, transportation and communications. During "emergencies," the military
can provide similar support, mostly in response to specific events such as the
attacks on the World Trade Center.
It is only in the case of "extraordinary" domestic operations that the unique
capabilities of the Defense Department are deployed. These include not just such
things as air patrols to shoot down hijacked planes or the defusing of bombs and
other explosives, , but also bringing in intelligence collectors, special operators
and even full combat troops.
Given the absence of terrorist attacks inside the United States since 9/11, it may
seem surprising that Northern Command is already working under the
far-reaching authority that goes with "extraordinary operations." But it is.
"We are not going to be out there spying on people," Eberhart told PBS'
NewsHour in September. But, he said, "We get information from people who
do." Some of that information increasingly comes not from the FBI or those
charged with civilian law enforcement but from a Pentagon organization
established last year, the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). The
seemingly innocuous CIFA was originally given the mission of protecting the
Defense Department and its personnel, as well as "critical infrastructure," against
espionage conducted by terrorists and foreign intelligence services.
But in August, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expanded CIFA's
mission, charging it with maintaining "a domestic law enforcement database that
includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the
Department of Defense." The group's Assessments and Technology Directorate,
which shares offices with the Justice Department's Foreign Terrorist Tracking
Task Force, has already identified 200 foreign terrorist suspects in the U.S.,
according to a Defense Department report to Congress.
This year, the Pentagon inspector general authorized assigning military special
agents to 56 FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force operations at FBI field offices.
These military agents will pursue leads in local communities of potential threats to
the military. Eberhart also plans to have his own cadre of agents working with
local law enforcement. Next year, he plans to transform Joint Task Force Six, a
drug interdiction unit of 160 military personnel at Ft. Bliss, Texas, into Joint
Interagency Task Force North. The new task force will be given nationwide
responsibility for working with law enforcement agencies.
CIFA, moreover, has been given a domestic "data mining" mission: figuring out a
way to process massive sets of public records, intercepted communications,
credit card accounts, etc., to find "actionable intelligence." "Homeland defense
relies on the sharing of actionable intelligence among the appropriate federal,
state, and local agencies," says Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson III, Eberhart's
deputy.
Another ambitious domestic project is being undertaken by the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is gathering "geospatial information" about
133 cities, the borders and seaports. This "urban data inventory" combines
unclassified and classified data (including such things as the location of emergency
services, communications, transportation and food supplies) with a high-resolution
satellite map of the United States. When the mapping efforts are completed, a
national "spatial data infrastructure" will be created down to the house level.
Intelligence analysts speak of one day being able to identify individual occupants,
as well as their national background and political affiliations. Though the military is
just getting its systems in place, there can be no other conclusion: Domestic
surveillance is back.
It's not that we're heading toward martial law. We're not. But outside the view of
most of the public, the government is daily expanding military operations into
areas of local government and law enforcement that historically have been
off-limits. And it doesn't seem far-fetched to imagine that those charged with
assembling "actionable intelligence" will slowly start combining databases of
known terrorists with seemingly innocuous lists of contributors to charities or
causes, that membership lists for activist organizations will be folded in, that
names and personal data of anti-globalization protesters will be run through the
"data mine." After all, the mission of Northern Command and other Pentagon
agencies is to identify groups and individuals who could potentially pose threats to
Defense Department and civilian installations.
Given all this, it might be a good time for state and local governments to ask
themselves whether the federal government, through the military, is slowly eroding
their power to manage what — for very good reasons — have always been
considered local responsibilities.
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