U.S. House of Reps oks use of military for border security

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=5549310262db8464

U.S. House of Reps oks use of military for border security
The U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday to allow military forces to be used in border-security operations under certain circumstances.

In a 252-171 vote, House members agreed on an amendment to the Sonny Montgomery National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Representatives also voted Friday to name the bill after Montgomery, a retired congressman and tireless veterans advocate. Montgomery died Friday at age 85.

The act gives authority to the Defense Department to assign military members to assist Homeland Security organizations in preventing the entry of terrorists, drug traffickers and illegal aliens into the United States and in inspecting cargo, vehicles and aircraft entering the United States to prevent weapons of mass destruction or other terrorist or drug trafficking items from entering the country.

The act specifies that such a move must be made at the request of the secretary of Homeland Security, who must certify that the action "is necessary to respond to a threat to national security posed by the entry into the United States of terrorists, drug traffickers, or illegal aliens."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman stressed that the military already has been helping other government agencies in some border-security functions, namely surveillance with unmanned aerial vehicles. "I think it's important to understand that the United States military does provide some assistance to the states currently," he said.

Governors in some border states use National Guard servicemembers in border-security missions, as well.
more...
So a request must be made to Homeland Security but then its up to him ??? And this MEANS absolutely NOTHING!!! I just saw Arnold saying the states are not paying for this that it has to be Federal... so now its Military and yet Homeland Security can boss the military around now... My head is spinning in this bureaucratic bullcrap

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Step by step.

This enables the use of the military for domestic operations. Another step towards dictatorship.

[IndianaGreen]

2. By voting to repeal Posse Comitatus

our Glorious Commander-in-Chief will use this as authority to do more grievous things than just border patrol.

[Squatch]

10. It *IS* the Department of Defense...

"defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic"

Though I vehemently disagree with this, I feel defending our borders is a vastly more appropriate use of our armed forces than the invasion and occupation of a foreign country.

[atreides1]

14. You forgot the part about support

It's "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic", notice the word SUPPORT.

Also "to bear true faith and allegiance", kind of hard to be true to the Costitution when the members of the House are self serving.

I would rather have an open border, then to have the beginnings of a dictatorship or a police state,
but I guess some people will give up everything just so that they can feel safe, like the German people did!!!!!

[Massachusetts]

20. "You forgot the part about support"

"I would rather have an open border, then to have the beginnings of a dictatorship or a police state,
but I guess some people will give up everything just so that they can feel safe, like the German people did!!!!!"

EXCELLENT POINT!

[Warren Stupidity]

16. You need to go read up on posse comitatus

"The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed in 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the Federal government to use the military for law enforcement."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

Putting the military in charge of a law enforcement problem is a very very bad idea.

Defending against all enemies is not rounding up and arresting people crossing the border to work. They are not our enemies nor are they enemies of the consitution. They are violating laws - which makes it a law enforcement issue NOT A MILITARY ISSUE.

[JCMach1]

22. Yes, very disturbing... major step toward total police state

:(

[Speaker]

23. We've been doing it since the '80s.

Another side "benefit" of the war on drugs.

Reagan/Bush/Clinton all put troops on the border.

[Speaker]

24. Militarizing the Border

http://mediafilter.org/CAQ/CAQ56border.html>Militarizing the Border

[Robbien]

3. Also, what military? The worn out used up Guard and Reserves?

What a farce. Wonder if the fundie far right bushbots are going to be happy about this.

[catnhatnh]

4. K&R....This is important!

One more step toward acclimating the public to the sight of armed troops in the street and the beginning of the end of posse commitatus....Notice in the article this ammendment to the bill is not even identified as to it's sponsors.....Hmm...I wonder whom it might be and their political affiliation.....Speech coming next week and coincidentally this enabling legislation moves this week...wow watch those moonbat tin foilers try to make something out of this.....

[0rganism]

5. Did congress just mobilize the military for border security?

We are nominally at peace with Mexico and Canada, this doesn't bode well for continental relations.

Not to mention the obvious undercutting of posse comitatus.

Every step they take brings us closer to the brink of unrecoverable disaster.

Personally, I blame the corporate-owned mass media for allowing, no, promoting, this situation.

[WarNoMore]

6. K&R! eom

[mom cat]

7. Vote #5. This is crucial.

[2Design]

8. are troops going to blockade corporations? that is the only

way this should go down - this is like getting the drug users but not the drug pushers - they continue to fight the wrong end of the problem -

they really don't want to do anything about the problem - if they did - they would go after the people hiring - the Wall Marts, etc

[me b zola]

9. I miss America

K&R

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. Hmm - using immigration to militarize borders to invade Canada

.
.
.

Y'all don't think they are gonna just militarize the SOUTHERN border do ya?

I don't

We got all this gas, oil, lumber, water and LAND up here!

Ya think those PNACers are planning to let us KEEP it all?

sumthing to think about

[ckramer]

12. Build a wall already, for crying out loud!

Anti-terrorism my ass if you can't even seal off your own border!

[DIKB]

13. Molly Ivins

had an article where she talked about being a circuit judge in TX in the 80s, when they raised a stretch of wall 17 ft high with barbed wire (same as the measurements they wanted on the border). They then had a contest to see who could clear it first, a case of beer was for the winner.

Winning time - 30 seconds.

[radfringe]

25. wall won't work

you can go over, under, through or AROUND a wall

assuming a wall is built where it is high enough to prevent climbing, deep enough to prevent tunneling and strong enough to prevent breaching -- all you have to do is go around it - hop on a boat head up the Gulf Coast or the pacific coast

if Cubans and other Caribbean area refugees will venture out into the Atlantic to land on the beaches of Miami -- what makes you think illegals from Mexico wouldn't do the same?

Historical note on how well walls work:

The Maginot Line was a line of concrete and steel defences that stretched between Luxembourg and Switzerland along France's border with Germany. The defensive system had originally been proposed by Joseph Joffre and was built between 1930 and 1935. It had three interdependent fortified belts with anti-tank emplacements and pillboxes standing in front of bombproof artillery casements. Named after Andre Maginot, the French war minister at the time, it cost 7,000 million francs to build and was claimed at the time to provide an impregnable defence against the German Army.

However, when Adolf Hitler ordered the Western Offensive in the spring of 1940, the German armed forces invaded France through the heavily wooded and semi-mountainous area of the Ardennes, an area, north of the Maginot Line. The French military had wrongly believed that the Ardennes was impassable to tanks. Seven panzer divisions led by Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel reached the Meuse River at Dinant on 12th May and the following day the French government was forced to abandon Paris.

the germans went around it

[Kip Humphrey]

15. To keep others out, or to keep us in? I wonder...

[magellan]

17. Why not just beef up Border Patrol?

I see no legitimate excuse for putting our troops along the border. Why not finally hire enough border patrol to get the job done right instead?

[Warren Stupidity]

18. a) grandstanding b) evil m'fers

b) is the more sinister part of this. It is an end run around laws prohibiting the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.

[magellan]

19. Yep, as I said, no legitimate excuse for using the military -- not one.

Plenty of illegitimate excuses, however. Leave it to the Repugs to find yet another way to abuse power and trash the Constitution.

[leesa]

21. "under certain circumstances..." You mean like the 2006 election?

They seem to be springing the trap, folks. And yet some still believe these good old boyz couldn't possibly have pulled off 9-11. Sheesh.

[Supersedeas]

26. marginalizing and trivializing the small steps toward Marshall law

[IChing]

27. martial law please and yes and kiss your democracy goodbye

This is illegal.