"It is time to rescind the existing Posse Comitatus Act and replace it with a new law. The old law is widely misunderstood and unclear. It leaves plenty of room for people to do unwise and perhaps unlawful things while trying to comply with their particular version. It certainly does not provide a basis for defining a useful relationship of military forces and civil authority in a global war with terrorism. The Posse Comitatus Act is an artifact of a different conflict-between freedom and slavery or between North and South, if you prefer. Today's conflict is also in a sense between freedom and slavery, but this time it is between civilization and terrorism. New problems often need new solutions, and a new set of rules is needed for this issue.
President ... and Congress should initiate action to enact a new law that would set forth in clear terms a statement of the rules for using military forces for homeland security and for enforcing the laws of the United States. Things have changed a lot since 1878, and the Posse Comitatus Act is not only irrelevant but also downright dangerous to the proper and effective use of military forces for domestic duties." Col. John R. Brinkerhoff, US Army (Retired)
Regardless of your position on illegals, it cannot be denied that the situation on our border with Mexico has gotten seriously out of hand. The violence has escalated to unprecedented levels, and is making further inroads into our nation. Incursions like those initiated recently by Mexican soldiers, who ventured onto US soil for the purpose of removing evidence from a crime scene implicating one of their citizens, driving off FBI agents who were investigating that scene in the process, cannot be tolerated. The video from that day clearly showed that it was OUR territorial integrity that was violated, not the other way around.
It is said that fences make good neighbors. Whether physical or abstract, clearly defined and defended borders have the same effect.
Until Posse Comitatus is replaced by another guideline that makes more sense in this day and age, the Army and Air Force will continue to be governed by it unless waived by the President. However, according to Col. Brinkerhoff, the Marine Corps and National Guard are NOT limited by Posse Comitatus ("Does not apply to the Navy and Marine Corps. However, the Department of Defense has consistently held that the Navy and Marine Corps should behave as if the act applied to them. Does not apply to the National Guard in its role as state troops on state active duty under the command of the respective governors. May not apply to the National Guard (qua militia) even when it is called to federal active duty. The Posse Comitatus Act contains no restrictions on the use of the federalized militia as it did on the regular Army."). According to Major Craig T. Trebilcock, Judge Advocate General Corps, U.S. Army Reserves, "...one of the express missions of the Guard is to preserve the laws of the state during times of emergency when regular law enforcement assets prove inadequate." If we are unable, or lack the political will, to defend our own borders and territorial integrity, then we have no business sending our troops around the world to die for the integrity of the borders of another country. It is time to release the Guards to, at the very least, perform the duties for which they were expressly created.
Like charity, defense begins at home.
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