Pubdate: Sun, 10 Oct 1999
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright: 1999 Post Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.stlnet.com/
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Author: William H . Freivogel, Post-Dispatch

IN THE WAR ON DRUGS, LAWMAKERS HAVE WIDENED THE MILITARY'S POWER TO POLICE
AMERICAN CITIZENS

The military's role in the siege of the Branch Davidians was no aberration
- -- it was government policy.

In a series of decisions over the past two decades, presidents and Congress
have consciously expanded the role of the military in the "war on drugs."

Civil libertarians and libertarians decry what the Cato Institute calls a
"culture of paramilitarism" that turns citizens into "enemies." But law
enforcement officials say the critics need a dose of reality: Military
tactics and equipment were essential in the confrontation with the heavily
armed Branch Davidians and are needed to respond to terrorist threats.

The separation between the military and civilians is deeply rooted in the
nation's history. The Third Amendment says that citizens can't be forced to
house troops. The Constitution makes the president the commander-in-chief,
enshrining civilian control of the military.

And, for more than a century, the Posse Comitatus Act kept the military out
of domestic policing -- at least in theory. The one-sentence law was passed
in 1878 at the end of Reconstruction when Southerners complained that
government troops had abused them and stuffed the ballot boxes in the 1876
presidential election. The law makes it a crime to "willfully use the Army
as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws." A posse comitatus is
a group of armed people acting under authority of a sheriff.

But no one has ever been convicted of violating the law, and it was
sometimes breached. The Army was used against strikers in labor disputes in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur used
troops in 1932 to disperse disgruntled veterans who marched in Washington.

More recently, one of the most controversial uses of the military in a
domestic disturbance was President Richard M. Nixon's 1973 decision to call
in the military after the American Indian Movement took over the site of the
battle of Wounded Knee, resulting in a 69-day standoff. Wounded Knee led to
a court decision that said the posse comitatus law barred "active"
participation by the military, but not advice.

In 1987 President Ronald Reagan waived the posse comitatus law to allow
military commandos to bring a riot of Mariel Cubans in an Atlanta prison
under control at a time when another riot of Cubans at Oakdale, La., had the
FBI's Hostage Rescue Team tied up. Jim Nelson, former FBI special agent in
charge in St. Louis, also recalls that a sizable military contingent was on
the scene in case of terrorist activities at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The involvement of the military in the drug war began in 1981 when Congress
passed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act that
allowed the military to assist police in enforcing drug laws. In 1986,
Reagan issued a directive designating drugs as a threat to national security
and encouraging a tight-knit relationship between the military and the police.

In 1988, Congress directed the National Guard to assist in the drug war, and
the following year President George Bush announced Gen. Colin Powell's plan
to set up joint task forces to coordinate the activities of the military and
police. The headquarters of the military's involvement in the drug war was
Joint Task Force-Six at Fort Bliss, Texas -- the base housing the Special
Forces unit that trained government agents for the first Waco raid.

Then, in 1994, the Clinton administration approved the transfer of military
technology to state and local police departments. Over the next two years,
the Pentagon gave police departments 12 million pieces of military
equipment, including 112 armored personnel carriers and 73 grenade
launchers. The Los Angeles Police Department bought 600 surplus Army M-16s.

The "militarization of Mayberry" is the term that Professor Peter Kraska of
Eastern Kentucky University uses to describe the development. Kraska found
that 90 percent of the police departments in cities with more than 50,000 in
population now have commando-style SWAT teams that use military tactics and
often second-hand military equipment.

Some of the SWAT teams have been criticized for using excessive force. The
Albuquerque, N.M., team was disbanded in 1998 after a series of
confrontations in which suspects died. A New York team fatally shot Amadou
Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant, earlier this year, leading to a
reorganization of that squad. Fresno, Calif., uses a SWAT team, complete
with helicopter and armored personnel carrier, to serve drug warrants in the
inner city.

James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington
said in an interview: "The war on drugs resulted in the militarization of
the police, in the proliferation of SWAT teams and the increasing
willingness to deploy them for regular arrests for street crime. That
development was manifest at Waco. The FBI hostage rescue team is the
ultimate SWAT team, highly militarized in its approach, its tactics and
equipment."

Dempsey sees the militarization of the police as part of a broader
development in which there is a "blurring of the line between national
security and domestic security" that includes government insistence on
controlling the computer infrastructure.

Richard Schwein, former FBI agent in charge in El Paso, Texas, said the
military help at Waco was essential but stresses that the military's
involvement in policing is "still very limited." Schwein thinks the military
should stay away from drug efforts, however. "They don't have the same
rules," he said. "They are trained to kill."

The Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Quartering of soldiers -- Ratified 12/15/1791

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the
consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed
by law.

The Posse Comitatus Act

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the
Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the
Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be
fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

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