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<A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.conspiracy:538461">Clinton and Martial Law</A>
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Subject: Clinton and Martial Law
From: B Lemaster <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]>
Date: Tue, 20 July 1999 01:59 PM EDT
Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Clinton and 'martial law'
Posse Comitatus Act
no check on White House power,
attorneys claim
By Sarah Foster
May 21, 1999
WorldNetDaily
President Clinton doesn't need to sign an executive
order to start a full-scale gun grab. He doesn't need to
declare martial law if he wants to use the armed forces
to deal with public unrest. And if he figures a state
government isn't doing all it should to enforce some
federal law that nobody likes, he can use federal troops
to make certain that the law is complied with -- even if
the governor and everyone living in the state are
adamantly opposed to it.
He can do all these things on his own, without seeking
advice or approval from Congress.
Not even the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which
Congress intended as a shield to protect citizens from
the military, places any significant limitations on
presidential power.
That's what Virginia attorneys William Olson and Alan
Woll discovered when they looked into the matter for
Gun Owners of America, a Washington-based lobbying
organization dedicated to defending the Second
Amendment.
Last December Olson and Woll published an analysis
on "Executive Orders and National Emergencies:
Presidential Power Grab Nearly Unchecked," which
was featured in WorldNetDaily. This earlier work
prompted Larry Pratt, president and executive director
of GOA, to commission the attorneys to examine a
related issue.
"I asked them to look at all the executive orders and see
if there was a nexus with guns; some kind of hook that
would allow the government to get a hook on our trigger
guards, so our guns can be pulled from our hands
through some power they had delegated to themselves
by executive order," Pratt recalled in a telephone
interview.
Though unable to find a direct reference that would
permit gun confiscation, "What they discovered was
worse," said Pratt. "The president doesn't have to sign
an executive order. He already has the power to go
after our guns."
The 35-page Olson-Woll report entitled "Presidential
Powers to Use the U.S. Armed Forces to Control
Potential Civilian Disturbances," developed naturally
from their earlier research, but it is written as though it
were a memo to the president, from a "Counsel's
Office," in response to a White House request for a
legal opinion about how far the president can go in using
the military for law enforcement purposes in the event of
a Y2K or other crisis: Would a declaration of martial
law be necessary to call out the military? What about
the Posse Comitatus Act?
"This memorandum is fictional but accurately depicts the
broad powers assumed and exercised by presidents to
utilize U.S. military forces to regulate civilian activity,"
the authors state in a disclaimer.
"We wrote it that way to draw peoples' attention to the
issues," Olson explained by telephone. "We hoped that
using this format to present the information would make
it more real. A lot of what we talk about sounds like
history, but it's quite current, and one could imagine the
president asking for advice on this very issue."
The answers to the hypothetical questions came as a
"complete surprise" to Larry Pratt and to the authors
themselves. "We had no idea that his powers were so
broad," said Olson. "The fact that there are these vast
standby statutory powers is shocking. I'm afraid
Congress keeps passing the laws that grant this power
and never stands back and asks, 'What have we done?'
It's time that they start looking and asking."
The statutes referred to are found in Title 10 of the U.S.
Code, which deals with the Armed Forces. Through
them the president is given authority to intervene with
military force in a state's domestic disputes, upon
request from the state legislature or governor -- or
without it. Some examples cited by Olson and Woll:
Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 331: Whenever there is an
insurrection in any State against its government, the
President may, upon the request of its legislature or its
governor ... use such of the armed forces, as he
considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.
Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 332: Whenever the
President considers that unlawful obstructions,
combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the
authority of the United States, make it impracticable to
enforce the laws of the United States in any State or
Territory ... he may call into Federal service such of the
militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as
he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to
suppress the rebellion.
Title 10, U.S. Code, Section 333: The President, by
using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by
other means, shall take such measures as he considers
necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection,
domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy,
if it hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and
of the United States within the State ... or opposes or
obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States
or impedes the course of justice under those laws ...
Olson and Woll discovered that the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in 1863 that the president can unilaterally
decide whether an insurrection is in effect and determine
how much force is necessary to suppress it. He can
"brand as belligerents the inhabitants of any area in
general insurrection."
Equally shocking, in Olson's view, as the fact that the
president can use the military against civilians, is the fact
that former presidents have done so on "many
occasions" -- none of them declaring martial law.
For example, in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson
deployed federal troops in Colorado to suppress a
labor dispute. Olson-Wolls point out that Wilson
ordered the U.S. Army to disarm American citizens --
including state and local officials, sheriffs, the police and
the National Guard; to arrest American citizens; to
monitor the state judicial process and re-arrest (and
hold in military custody) persons released by the state
courts; and to deny writs of habeas corpus issued by
state courts.
Earlier, in South Carolina in 1871, without declaring
martial law, President Grant sent troops into nine
counties of South Carolina to enforce a proclamation
commanding the residents to give up their arms and
ammunition. Grant suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
More than 600 arrests had been made by the end of
1871.
Between 1807 and 1925, federal troops were used
more than 100 times to quell domestic disturbances --
sometimes the presence of the troops alone was enough
to discourage the participants.
"Look at the history," Olson exclaimed. "None of what's
happening is new. Could you ever imagine that the
President of the United States could order the Army to
disarm sheriffs, disarm police, and disarm the National
Guard? Isn't that beyond what you'd ever dream?
"But it has happened. It's the fact that this has happened
that should cause people to take this issue seriously."
But doesn't the Posse Comitatus Act provide
restrictions against the use of the military? This is the act
that prohibits the Army or Air force from acting as a
posse comitatus -- "the population of a county the
sheriff may summon to assist him in certain cases."
"No one should ever think the Posse Comitatus Act is
any check whatsoever on the ability of the federal
government to employ military might against civilians,"
said Olson.
"We were surprised at how weak the Posse Comitatus
Act is," he continued. "There have been no prosecutions
ever, and it doesn't apply to any branch of the armed
forces except the Army and the Air Force. It has a huge
exception -- that deployment of the Army or Air Force
as a posse comitatus is a crime, 'except in cases and
under circumstances expressly authorized by the
Constitution or Act of Congress.'
"That 'Constitution or Act of Congress' exception is so
broad you can drive a truck through," Olson remarked.
"The final thing that surprised us was that that the
military doesn't need an order from the president to
have control over civilians," Olson said. "I had always
thought only the president could declare martial law, but
apparently not. Apparently any commander can do it,
can suspend all civil rights."
Larry Pratt considers this last the most egregious of all
the Olson-Woll findings.
"Military commanders can act on the basis that there is
an emergency," said Pratt. "They don't have to wait until
martial law is declared. The powers that they have in
their hands are tremendous.
"People can't expect President Clinton to sit there in
front of a camera and say, 'Tonight I have declared
martial law,'" Pratt said. "You'll just find out about it
when you try and get on the main highway and there's a
humvee with a soldier who says, 'Turn back.' And when
you ask why, he puts his gun into ready position and
says, 'I'm only following orders. Please turn back.'
"You can challenge that. You can say they -- the
commander or the soldier -- have no constitutional
authority for this, and you may be correct. But you will
be arguing on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence.
They can simply do it. It will not be debated.
"It's wonderful," Pratt noted, ironically. "It goes beyond
what [White House spokesperson] Paul Begala said
about executive orders: You know, 'Stroke of a pen.
Law of the land. Kinda cool.' Martial law could be
initiated by one commander sending an e-mail to a guy
at the base to muster his troops.
"Stroke of a keyboard, martial law. Kinda cool," Pratt
said.
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