Decius wrote:
The Secretary "is reviewing a wide range of possible changes in the way the
military could be used in domestic emergencies," Di Rita said Friday.
He said these included "possible changes in the relationship between
federal and state military authorities." Di Rita called the Posse
Comitatus Act "very archaic," and stated that it limited the Pentagon's
flexibility in responding.
I was thinking about this as I watched events unfold in New Orleans. I wanted the military to respond, but in the back of my mind I was concerned about the legal implications of that. I think the right way to handle this is to have federal first responders with security capability, perhaps organized by FEMA. There is a totally different tone that you take with domestic catastrophies versus enemies in war, even when people are rioting or shooting at rescue teams, and it is appropriate to have a rapid response capability that is properly trained to handle domestic threats.
Furthermore, Posse Comitatus is founded on solid philisophical principals that prevent the state from finding itself in a position where it is waging war on its own citizens. There is no reason emergency congressional authorization could not be obtained for the use of military force domestically if required. If Congress can't pass bills fast enough I can build a computer system that will fix that problem.
Worrying about the legal implications in a disaster is pretty sad.
FEMA should have requested military assistance and noone should have been worrying abuot legal issues.
I guess what Bush is doing is right then, cause if people are worrying about legal issues - then we just neeed to make using the military legal and those issues go away eh?
