Army Chief of Staff Argues to Use Army for Domestic Enforcement - no Posse Comitatus

[lordofwyr]

A Police/Sheriff's Dept. Helicopter is usually manned by a Law Enforcement Officer and police spotter that have years of training in what is legal and what is illegal to do when it comes to your personal civil rights in that city/county/state.

Military style drones manned by government entities not of your area will be manned remotely by personnel with no such training and probably who could not give a hoot about your personal civil rights locally or maybe even nationally.

Why is that important?

Bill of Rights - 4th Amendment - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So when you start seeing people getting served with search warrants, summonses or indictments because of some "violation" spotted from the air, you know what is up. For years police abused the system of helicopters by flying over neighborhoods and using Forward Looking Infra Red to scan the roofs of homes. If you had a higher heat signature than your neighbors, they assumed you were growing pot in the attic and got search warrants to kick in your door. This finally came to an end when the courts demanded a higher level of proof than a "hot roof" at night, but that is just the fix, and does not make up for all of those persons whose door was kick in and who were handcuffed on the floor while their Lilly Growing home business was ransacked.

Get the idea why I do not want untrained military or civilians flying over and looking at every inch of my property now? Everyone better uproot every Japanese Maple that has what looks like marijuana type leaves, or any possible personal shooting ranges where you might have "lead contamination" in violation of some obscure EPA rule, or worst of all, they find a Diamond Backed Snail Darter Brood Sow on the property, even if it was just passing through, and declare your entire farm a protected wetland wildscape and demand you pack up and abandon the property immediately, cease all farm operations and forfeit it to the government.

Don't believe that could happen? Already has......Google around and find plenty of "wetlands" declared post facto and people forced into court to try to use their own properties.

And yes, I know I invented the Diamond Backed Snail Darter Brood Sow, but watch the government decide they exist and come flying over my place looking for them now ...........

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Spirit51]

What for?

Here it is.

» EPA Using Drones to Spy on Cattle Ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!


Speaking of drones.....

http://www.latimes.com/business/mone...,3627487.story

[Rotorblade]

I can see some uses for a drone operated by law enforcement but like many good ideas I can also see how easily the technology can be abused.
These could be handy in a search and rescue scenario, checking long stretches of desert hiway, tailing a vehicle that is running from LE, etc.
I can also see a civilian use. Checking on your cattle, crops etc., but I will agree that for every legitimate use there will be a strong temptation to misuse the device.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

[paaiyan]

Spirit, I'm not saying you're incorrect about the EPA using drones, but I just want to say that personally, I am immediately skeptical of anything Alex Jones says.

That said, the use of drones is documented in many cases and is only getting more and more common. I, as well as many of you, am very unhappy about that.

[mcp1810]

So can anyone tell me specifically what law enforcement missions General O. is talking about the troops taking on? From the out of context quotes in the article it is impossible to tell. I can't find anything where he even can be shown to be endorsing any kind of enforcement activity.

Would posse comitatus bar active duty troops from using drones to assist law enforcement in a search for a missing child?
Would it prohibit troops from disarming a black market nuclear weapon that is smuggled into the U.S.?
If a dirty bomb is set off in your area should we leave it to your local volunteer fire department to handle the victims and the clean up? Can your local emergency management people deal with persistent chemical weapons?

And how would any of the above be defined as enforcement action that would be barred by P.C.?

[Rock and Glock]

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) proposes

The CFR has a long history of idiocy. A bunch of elitist good for nothing over-educated east and west coast namby-pamby feel-good mental midgets that know nothing about everything and everything about nothing financed by east coast guilt ridden panty sniffing dogfaced momma's boys and girls driven by some misplaced overarching desire to fix nothing and ruin everything in the name of some fancy-schmancy psuedointellectual think tank.

What a beast the CFR has become.

If this were taken seriously, the military waits for Policy decisions from politicians anyway, or they become retired.

Edited to add:

In an article penned by Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General Raymond T. Odierno, the CFR would see the Army used to address “challenges in the United States itself” in order to keep the homeland safe from domestic disasters, including terrorist attacks. Odierno writes:

Where appropriate we will also dedicate active-duty forces, especially those with niche skills and equipment, to provide civilian officials with a robust set of reliable and rapid response options.

That’s right. Should the sheriff suspect that a particular citizen in his county poses a threat to security and feels he doesn’t have the proper “skills and equipment” to deal with the situation, he can just call out the U.S. Army and bring a “rapid response” force that is robust enough to eliminate the problem.

These are not the musings of an unknown academic written in an obscure journal of little importance. These are the black-and-white plans for “building a flexible force” as laid out by the man in charge and published for all the world to read by the people who may have put him there.

In order to justify this new (and illegal) mission for the Army, General Odierno points to three “major changes” that have precipitated the re-tasking of the troops: First, “declining budgets due to the country’s worsened fiscal situation; second, “a shift in emphasis to the Asia-Pacific region; and third, a “broadening of focus from counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and training of partners to shaping the strategic environment, preventing the outbreak of dangerous regional conflicts, and improving the army’s readiness to respond in force to a range of complex contingencies worldwide.”

There are so many things wrong with every one of these points that each deserves its own article focused solely on its deconstruction. Unfortunately, there is only so much space and each of these considerations has one critical flaw in common: no constitutional authority for any of it.

What was Odierno thinking?

I love V8 too, but only on my third cup of coffee.

[Harryball]

The CFR has a long history of idiocy. A bunch of elitist good for nothing over-educated east and west coast namby-pamby feel-good mental midgets that know nothing about everything and everything about nothing financed by east coast guilt ridden panty sniffing dogfaced momma's boys and girls driven by some misplaced overarching desire to fix nothing and ruin everything in the name of some fancy-schmancy psuedointellectual think tank.

What a beast the CFR has become.

If this were taken seriously, the military waits for Policy decisions from politicians anyway, or they become retired.

R & G you should of had a V8....

[suntzu]

So can anyone tell me specifically what law enforcement missions General O. is talking about the troops taking on? From the out of context quotes in the article it is impossible to tell. I can't find anything where he even can be shown to be endorsing any kind of enforcement activity.

Would posse comitatus bar active duty troops from using drones to assist law enforcement in a search for a missing child?
Would it prohibit troops from disarming a black market nuclear weapon that is smuggled into the U.S.?
If a dirty bomb is set off in your area should we leave it to your local volunteer fire department to handle the victims and the clean up? Can your local emergency management people deal with persistent chemical weapons?

And how would any of the above be defined as enforcement action that would be barred by P.C.?

Without getting into huge 5 page post I will summarize. Posse Comitatus is only one law that restricts military from performing LE duties. There are eclusions such as Nukes and other issues that local LE does not have the expertise. But there are many other EO's, laws, Acts, and parts of the USC that give guidlines to do's and don't with the military. Then we you start talking about collecting data or intelligence then more rules kick in.
It is not a clear cut answer where someone can look it up on Wiki and become an expert. JSOC is an exclusion also for support roles.
In short, the president or congress can authorize the us of the military within CONUS for LE.

But the issue here is not disarming a nuke which is clear cut and no one has debate on. The issue is using military assets (which BTW are funded by our taxes and are suppose to be for national defense, not LE work so right there is possibly misappropriation of funds) to act as LE or support LE by providing them with intelligence.
There is big problem with that. The military is not educated in the lawful gathering of evidence, and the correct way to handle evidence or data. Let me clarify that. Folks in MI generally understand restrictions on collecting information on US persons. They are not familiar with gathering evidence in regards to what can be lawfully collected as it pertains to law enforcement.

[mcp1810]

So do you actually have the full article by the General to show that is what in fact he is talking about?

[Rock and Glock]

Council on Foreign Relations

Look here, I am out of time right now.

Here it is:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...-of-transition

[gobbly]

A Police/Sheriff's Dept. Helicopter is usually manned by a Law Enforcement Officer and police spotter that have years of training in what is legal and what is illegal to do when it comes to your personal civil rights in that city/county/state.

Military style drones manned by government entities not of your area will be manned remotely by personnel with no such training and probably who could not give a hoot about your personal civil rights locally or maybe even nationally.

Why is that important?

Bill of Rights - 4th Amendment - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So when you start seeing people getting served with search warrants, summonses or indictments because of some "violation" spotted from the air, you know what is up. For years police abused the system of helicopters by flying over neighborhoods and using Forward Looking Infra Red to scan the roofs of homes. If you had a higher heat signature than your neighbors, they assumed you were growing pot in the attic and got search warrants to kick in your door. This finally came to an end when the courts demanded a higher level of proof than a "hot roof" at night, but that is just the fix, and does not make up for all of those persons whose door was kick in and who were handcuffed on the floor while their Lilly Growing home business was ransacked.

Get the idea why I do not want untrained military or civilians flying over and looking at every inch of my property now? Everyone better uproot every Japanese Maple that has what looks like marijuana type leaves, or any possible personal shooting ranges where you might have "lead contamination" in violation of some obscure EPA rule, or worst of all, they find a Diamond Backed Snail Darter Brood Sow on the property, even if it was just passing through, and declare your entire farm a protected wetland wildscape and demand you pack up and abandon the property immediately, cease all farm operations and forfeit it to the government.

Don't believe that could happen? Already has......Google around and find plenty of "wetlands" declared post facto and people forced into court to try to use their own properties.

And yes, I know I invented the Diamond Backed Snail Darter Brood Sow, but watch the government decide they exist and come flying over my place looking for them now ...........

I seem to recall a ruling that using infrared on a residence required a warrant. I could be wrong though...

[TravisABQ]

Not being a premium member I could only read part of General O's article. Can you provide direct quotes from the General as to what specific police actions he is proposing active duty military troops be involved in? In the past there have been a number of articles where people have claimed that military units have been tasked with all kind of things that simply aren't true.
I don't know the man personally (only met him once) but I have friends that worked under him for several months and they speak very highly of him.
As far as the drones go, that is a little behind the times. Two drones were made available to the task force hunting for John Mohammed and Lee Malvo.

You mean when they were looking for a white man in A white van?

[mcp1810]

You mean when they were looking for a white man in A white van?

At one point we were looking for an Astro van with ladder racks, another point it was a Toyota Camry. They had two drones equipped with sensors that were supposed to detect gun shots. We would then be sealing the area and looking for our suspect vehicles.

[suntzu]

At one point we were looking for an Astro van with ladder racks, another point it was a Toyota Camry. They had two drones equipped with sensors that were supposed to detect gun shots. We would then be sealing the area and looking for our suspect vehicles.

Were they DOD drones? Thought they were FBI or another OGA

[mcp1810]

We also had Army RC-7 aircraft. DOD assets were requested via the FBI and approved by the Sec Def. They were operated by military personnel but with civillian LE personnel present to review and assess the take. The military folks were not involved at all in the decision making process, they were simply operators of their equipment. We decided what to deploy, and where and when to deploy it.

Rock and Glock when I click that link I only get the first page of the article then it says I must log in to read the rest. The part I can see says nothing about the specific missions the General is proposing the military get involved in.