PSSSST, OUR NEIGHBORS ARE BLOWING UP BUILDINGS :

Be Careful About Calling In the Cavalry in the Struggle for Homeland Security (Stephen Dycus, a professor at Vermont Law School, is lead author of "National Security Law", July 26 2002, LA Times)

Last week, President Bush called for reexamination of the 1878 law that limits the role of the military in law enforcement activities. This call was echoed over the weekend by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, head of a new military command that would direct the Pentagon's response to another terrorist attack at home.

Congressional authority for such a response is already extremely broad, and expansion of that authority would challenge a revered American tradition of keeping the military out of domestic affairs except in the most extraordinary circumstances.

Efforts to further weaken the law--known as the Posse Comitatus Act--are ill-advised and unnecessary.

When I had him for Property, he was known as "D-Minus Dycus", but I liked him. Unfortunately, the premise of this essay is that these are not "the most extraordinary circumstances". That seems simply wrong. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 31, 2002 10:50 AM