Posse Comitatus: Rest In Peace
Of all the idiocy we’ve seen during Dubya’s administration, this may end up being the worst……
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. [...] There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.
[...]
The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.
Domestic emergency deployment may be “just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority,” or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU’s National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of “a creeping militarization” of homeland security.
“There’s a notion that whenever there’s an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green,” Healy said, “and that’s at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace.”
Given the way the ‘war on drugs’ has turned so many US law enforcement agencies into thuggish paramilitary shock troops, jailed thousands of non-violent offenders, and overthrown many long-held constitutional protections, it’s pretty safe to assume that such a resource of state power will eventually be used to assist other “high risk” law enforcement activities, such as braking up political riots, anti-terrorism raids, and so forth.
Barack Obama was elected on the slogan of ‘change’. Let us hope one of his first acts is to squash this nonsense while it’s still an idea.
I’m not holding my breath.
Call for help
Summer is upon us and it’s time for an ALS ”make-over”. But for this I will need help. If you can help, please e-mail me on john.humphreys99@gmail.com instead of leaving a comment.
I’d like to move the main ALS website off wordpress, so the first thing we need is somebody to host the website.
I’d also like to re-do the ALS website, so any web-designers & website managers would be appreciated.
The Australian political quiz needs a separate website and hosting… and it needs the coding to be updated, and somebody to be out there promoting it.
The ALS used to have a range of activities, but over the past few years it has become primarily a blog. It would be great to get into some other activities. We have just signed on as co-sponsors of the Heartland’s climate change conference, and perhaps there are other things that we could be pursuing. An internet censorship campaign? A response to the economic crisis? Re-start the regular gatherings? Producing more comprehensive articles? Releasing press releases on topical issues? Regular libertarian newsletter? Or anything else you can think of (and can do).
I’d also like to offer websites for other libertarians to post their thoughts. Perhaps we could arrange for ALSers to have www.yourname.libertarian.org.au which they could use however they liked.
And I’d like to include other blogs into the ALS family, so if you’re running a separate libertarian blog with a particular agenda then perhaps we can make your blog an “official” ALS blog.
Finally, we are always looking for more good writers to get involved in the ALS blog.
So if you can help with any of the above, or if you have any other ideas for how we can develop the ALS to provide a more prominent libertarian voice in Australia, then please get in touch.
Catallaxy Files- Not all criticism of government is rent-seeking May 17, 2012Jess Irvine has an op-ed in the SMH where she makes the argument Meanwhile, business is acting like an adolescent, too, chucking hissy fits about workplace laws and taxation because it has learnt that this is an extremely effective parental manipulation strategy. In the teenage economy, the returns from rentseeking – or seeking special treatment [...]Sinclair Davidson
- Words from the wise May 17, 2012Graham Richardson has a must-read op-ed in the Australian today. He reveals the depths of hatred towards the PM. While it is clear Julia Gillard just doesn’t understand how bad things really are, she is at the very core of the disenchantment. These two MPs, who both voted for her in Kevin Rudd’s February challenge, [...]Sinclair Davidson
- Reactions to the The Heretic May 17, 2012Jo Nova reports some discussion stirred up by The Heretic, a play that addresses climate issues, on stage in Melbourne this week. Golly, but The Heretic is a play that appears to be genuinely useful art, something that actually challenges the paradigm. Brice Bosnich reviews it ( see below), Andrew Glikson rails against it (see, [...]Poor Old Rafe
- Not all criticism of government is rent-seeking May 17, 2012
- inCISe
- Govt furphy on Indigenous homeownership May 16, 2012In a media release on the Indigenous Affairs part of the 2012 Budget, the federal government insists it ‘will continue to prioritise access to the new program for people seeking to move into home ownership on Indigenous land’ – but this is a furphy. The government is well aware that people living on Indigenous land will not be able to access money from the n […]Sara Hudson
- A move long overdue May 15, 2012At long last, services on Sydney’s highly inefficient rail network are getting some attention. Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian has announced that 750 jobs will be cut in a restructuring effort intended to reduce bureaucratic waste. Even more heartening is that RailCorp’s projected job cuts are relatively mild, consisting of voluntary redundancies to m […]Alexander Philipatos
- Generalising about racism May 14, 2012The Sydney Morning Herald is running a poll asking if Australians are Racist. So far 74% of respondents say yes and 26% say no. Some of the commentators include Larissa Berendt who argues that Australia is a racist country because Aboriginal people have a shorter life expectancy. However, there are many reasons why their life expectancy is shorter than the a […]Sara Hudson
- Govt furphy on Indigenous homeownership May 16, 2012
- IPA news
- The unhappy compromise of European 'austerity' May 14, 2012Has austerity worked in Europe? Well, if "austerity" means savage cuts to government spending, then there has been no...
- The politics of projection: there's a reason we can't all just get along May 12, 2012Politics is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder. Obviously conservatives, libertarians, progressives and...
- Great expectations vanish May 10, 2012The federal budget was entirely predictable. The dodgy accounting. The flimsy "surplus". The higher taxes on the wealthy....
- The unhappy compromise of European 'austerity' May 14, 2012
Oz Political Quiz
