Hello everyone, I know the "big" news stories these days are gaffes and screw-ups of the McCain campaign, and new polls in battleground states, but I am shocked that nobody has diaried about this yet. Follow me over the fold for the story.
Today, Alex Jones of "Infowars.com" has written an article on what I consider to be one of the scariest legal violations of our current government. In short, starting in October the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team will be deployed in the United States, under command of U.S. Army North. This was even reported nonchalantly in the Army Times earlier this month. In this article, the Army Times states:
...this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
The article also states that this detachment will be trained to use the Army's first "non-lethal package" for "civil unrest and crowd control." Alex Jones correctly notes:
The unit would also be deployed to deal with hostile crowds of Americans in the aftermath of a massive economic depression, potential food riots and race riots, if one defines the term "crowd control" to match its reasonably applicable scenarios.
The problem here is that it is in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. For those who are not familiar, the act basically states that most of the military (the Coast Guard is excluded) cannot use their powers for law-enforcement except where explicitly authorized by Congress. The Jones article gives a more complete discussion of the illegalities of this and I suggest you read his article.
I know this may sound a bit "tin foil hat-y", but is this the first step towards an Orwellian future of martial law? I've seen plenty abuses of power just from cops from my own small town, and they don't have body armor and assault rifles.