Posse Comitatus Confusion

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


This doesn’t seem like good news, from the Washington Times:

President Bush yesterday said he wants Congress to consider putting the Pentagon, not state and local agencies, in charge of responding to large natural disasters in the future….

That would require a change of law, since the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids the military from performing civilian law enforcement duties. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is investigating possible reforms to the act, which Pentagon officials consider archaic. …

[C]ritics are already warning against repeal of Posse Comitatus. “Washington seems poised to embrace further centralization and militarization at home,” cautioned Gene Healy, senior editor at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “That has the makings of a policy disaster that would dwarf Hurricane Katrina.”

The main thing of it is, none of this is necessary. As William Arkin reports, Pentagon documents make it perfectly clear that the military already “can provide support to civil authorities, and even act as a lead agency in the face of a breakdown of civil command and control…. in accordance with the National Response Plan and current law.” The swift military response to Hurricane Rita proves that, with a decent amount of preparation, the Defense Department has the ability natural disasters on the homeland.

Basically, the Washington Times gets it wrong, the Posse Comitatus Act doesn’t really restrict what the military can do in the event of a breakdown of local and state authority, it mainly just subordinates the military to civilian control. Nor does it tie the president’s hands. So either Bush isn’t planning to propose anything new here, and mainly just wants to shift blame for the response to Katrina away from his administration and towards state and local governments—in other words, this is all for show—or else he’s proposing to do something that is entirely unnecessary and really, really unwise. Say it again: Katrina was a catastrophe because Bush screwed up, not because the military lacked operational flexibility in the homeland.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate