"Cliff" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 22:59:09 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"RD" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:50:44 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


This Act probably is the most myth-filled one in American History. If
people
only read it, it would all be a lot simpler.

What myths?

That is somehow enables posses, particularly posses comitatus ("power of
the
county"), and that it prevents the National Guard from being used in
domestic duties.

All is says is that the US Army cannot be employed for police activities
in
the US. It was written as a rider to the defense appropriations bill of
1878. The more recent amendments to it have added the Air Force. Since
amendments to it enacted in the early 1980s, it is effectively defunct.

It explicitly does NOT, and never did, cover the National Guard, which,
in
times of peace, is the states' militias.

I was always under the impression that the US standing forces
(or the CIA) CANNOT be used for domestic matters. Unlike police,
FBI, guard, etc.
Not that Bush & the neocons know this it seems ....

Mostly myth. In fact, the 1878 act stopped it for a while, but it didn't
take long to find exceptions. There have always been exceptions.

In the 1980s, the government effectively gutted the old act so they could
use the military in the War Against Drugs, which, as we all know, was such a
successful campaign.

Ed Huntress