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Rand Paul vs Battlefield USA
Published: 29 November, 2011, 22:03
Edited: 16 December, 2011, 20:47
United States, Washington: U.S. Sen. Rand Paul speaks during a press conference with fellow Republicans on objecting to a scheduled U.S. Senate recess next week June 29, 2011 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo / Win McNamee)
TAGS: Military, Terrorism, Law, USA, War
As lawmakers this week look over a provision that would turn the United States in a warzone and allow the military to detain Americans indefinitely, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is trying to tackle the text by offering an amendment of his own.
A provision to the National Defense Authorization Act going before the Senate today would turn America into a “battlefield,” says supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina.), and would allow the president of the United States the power to detain citizens domestically without trial, allowing the US military to act as law enforcement over their own civilians.
In response, Paul, son of libertarian icon and Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul, is proposing an amendment that would strike that provision of the legislation, Section 1031, right off the bill.
When RT reported on the story yesterday, we noted that Colorado Senator Mark Udall had offered an amendment of his own which would require Congress to consider whether any detention legislation would be legal. Paul, rather, is trying to bypass that determination and instead strike Section 1031 off completely.
“Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the US military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil,” writes Udall. “That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.”
While Udall’s amendment has received backing from the American Civil Liberties Union, Rand Paul’s more powerful proposal would do far more to thwart the transformation of America into a battlefield. “There are other similar Amendments too, however none of them completely eliminate the constitutionally offensive section,” reports the Tennessee Campaign for Liberty.
Reporting live from a Senate hearing this morning, the ACLU reports that Paul called the proposed provision dangerously vague and said that Americans should not sacrifice their liberties for supposed security. Along with Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia), they both offered their support for the Udall Amendment this morning. By 3 p.m., however, the ACLU reported that the amendment had failed in a vote of 37-61.
Should Paul’s own amendment be approved, it would, according to the official filing, “remove language affirming the authority of the Armed Forces to detain certain persons pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
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36 comments
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Can we pre-empt these traitors and state that Carl Levin and John McCain are suspected Al-Queda sympathizers?
The government is just putting in place anti-citizen legislation to be ready for the coming collapse. Next will be another false flag attack like Oklahoma City and then gun confiscation. Don't leave it to the Supreme Court, contact your congressional reps and tell them that they do not have your permission to legislate away The Constitution.
"for some inexplicable reason "The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in the 19th century, when the distinction between criminal law enforcement and defense of the national borders was clearer. Today, with the advent of technology that permits weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons—to be transported by a single person, the line between police functions and national security concerns has blu
While the act appears to prohibit active participation in law enforcement by the military, the reality in application has become quite different. The act is a statutory creation, not a constitutional prohibition. Accordingly, the act can and has been repeatedly circumvented by subsequent legislation. Since 1980, Congress and the president have significantly eroded the prohibitions of the act in order to meet a variety of law enforcement challenges.
The use of the military in opposing drug smuggling and illegal immigration was a significant step away from the act’s central tenet that there was no proper role for the military in the direct enforcement of the laws. The legislative history explains that this new policy is consistent with the Posse Comitatus Act, as the military involvement still amounted to an indirect and logistical support of civilian law enforcement and not direct enforcement.[9]
The weakness of the analysis of passive versus direct involvement in law enforcement was most graphically demonstrated in the tragic 1999 shooting of a shepherd by marines who had been assigned a mission to interdict smuggling and illegal immigration in the remote Southwest. An investigation revealed that for some inexplicable reason the 16-year-old shepherd fired his weapon in the direction of the marines. Return fire killed the boy. This tragedy demonstrates that when armed troops are placed in a position where they are being asked to counter potential criminal activity, it is a mere semantic exercise to argue that the military is being used in a passive support role. The fact that armed military troops were placed in a position with the mere possibility that they would have to use force to subdue civilian criminal activity reflects a significant policy shift by the executive branch away from the posse comitatus doctrine.