Tag: Lackawanna Six
Posted on Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 03:36:40 PM EST
Tags: Lackawanna Six (all tags)
Remember the Buffalo/Lackawanna Six? It's now coming out that Dick Cheney urged former President Bush to ignore the Posse Comitatus Act and send the military into Buffalo to make the arrests. Bush ended up rejecting the idea.
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.
What did Cheney use as support for his view that the military could be used for a law enforcement operation if national security was involved? A 2001 Justice Department memo co-authored by John Yoo and directed to then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. [More...]
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