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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/25/2009 : 07:04:48
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.... along with various other Bush era miscreants, including Bush himself?
Link WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.
Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.
Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.
A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.
The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.
In the discussions, Mr. Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that, using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.
“The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,” the memorandum said.
The memorandum — written by the lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked the department about a president's authority to use the military to combat terrorist activities in the United States.
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The Cheney link in the article is of interest as well. I didn't bother to open the Bush link because, well, a dullard is rarely all that interesting to start with.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 07/25/2009 : 07:47:52 [Permalink]
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Of the arguments presented by Cheney, Yoo, et al... this one is not 100% without merit. If there were "enemy combatants" on US soil then the military is an acceptable tool. So when Canadia invades we can use the army to defend ourselves.
The idea that a couple of people, even competent and well trained (which these lakawana 'tards were not), can be declared "enemy combatants" is a real problem for me though. I could go on for a page about why.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2009 : 11:47:57 [Permalink]
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The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was passed essentially to end Reconstruction, and to prevent the Federal Government from using troops to put down the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was riding wild across the former Confederacy, terrorizing blacks and enforcing Jim Crow. In those days, the Army would have been the only force that could have protected the Constitutional rights of former slaves. Posse Comitatus has an ugly origin.
Thus Posse Comitatus remained one major rallying principle for Segregationists and "States Rights" conservatives almost up until the present. The NeoCons, though, upset this traditional applecart. They are only for States Rights when the issues favor them, and quite willing to use Federal authority to overthrow the Florida presidential election results, or to enforce anti-abortion standards.
Cheney was a complete idiot in wanting to suspend Posse Comitatus just to arrest a handful of terror suspects. There was no practical reason for it. I can only guess that he must have been contemplating putting another arrow into the Executive quiver for later use against the general population.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2009 : 12:48:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Cheney was a complete idiot in wanting to suspend Posse Comitatus just to arrest a handful of terror suspects. There was no practical reason for it. |
That's what the FBI is for. And BATF and DEA and the Secret Service, depending on what the suspects are doing for money. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Why is the swine Cheney not in jail....
