Reply #38: Houston Chronicle [View All]

[JaneGat]

Bush considers changes to Posse Comitatus Act
Both right and left wary of giving domestic police power to military
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"The Civil War-era law bars federal troops from carrying out law enforcement duties inside the United States during peacetime, short of suppressing an insurrection. Congress enacted the prohibition to curtail alleged excesses by Union occupation forces in former Confederate states after the Civil War.

Bush signaled that the law was up for review when he said in a nationally televised address from New Orleans on Sept. 15 that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina showed "a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces."

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan later said revision or repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act was an issue that "needs to be looked at" by Congress and the administration, adding that officials are in the "early planning of discussing it."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/3377358